Who knew the 6.15 Omega Quests… (Spoilers)

[Cilia]

Where do you guys find time to actually play the game with this gish galloping? Eesh.

No, no one is saying that.

The controversy doesn't come from the obviousness of evil sometimes being necessary.

It comes from said evils being painted as noble. It comes from questioning whether or not they were indeed, necessary.

The Sundering is not portrayed as a noble act; it is portrayed as a grim necessity, an "I did what I had to do" moment. Venat's suffering is portrayed as a noble thing, and given what she sacrifices and sacrifices for, I can't really fault that.

We can argue whether or not it was necessary all day long, though arguing to the contrary is heavily rooted in speculation. Regardless, any reality in which the PC exists must necessarily have the Sundering take place whether you think it was right, necessary, both, or neither.

They aren't, I think, but people wanted to be on the side of a morally grey figure and just can't quite wrap their heads around the reveal that that figure was Hydaelyn all along.

I don't feel that I necessarily have to agree with Her, but I can at least pretend to get it. We can debate to the Hells and back over if their was a "better" choice to be made, but ultimately the very debate itself, and whatever stances result, could not even exist without the resultant pain of events that have already happened.

It's as funny as it is frustrating that back in Shadowbringers there was so much hullabaloo about "nuance" and "moral greyness," but then our mentor reveals she's just a person and not a perfect angel, who made hard choices with what information she had available, and is demonized for it. It's like kids learning their parents are no more flawless or wise than they are and feeling betrayed by their own perception, in a way.

I happen to agree that it was a necessity, if a grim one, something I can probably stomach easier because I'm not enamored with any of the Ancients or their civilization and am philosophically opposed to their ideal of perfection. Just me though.

[Vyrerus]

Where do you guys find time to actually play the game with this gish galloping? Eesh.

I've always had an incredible amount of time for my favorite pastime, video games, and in general I play the game almost everyday (though this has waned this summer between Elden Ring and patch lull). Forum perusal only takes a couple of hours. /shrug I often replay the story, sometimes for extra swag!

*ahem* Anyway...

Re: It wasn't portrayed as a noble act etc.

Like hell it wasn't! It was given an entire damn metaphor scene which dodged all of its immediate specifics, complete with rousing demagoguery. By a literal demagogue. Which went on to try and impart more of an importance on her suffering than those she assaulted. Which was then followed up by a literal Y'shtola quote being, "Far be it from me to refute Hydaelyn's own words... Yet even if her actions were neither kind nor just, we can give them a nobler meaning."

There isn't any speculation to be had in the contrary. Within story specifics(the, to get our current narrative, duh), sure, but the issue arises with the setting we were given for the Ancients. We were given a race of people who could create anything with a snap of their fingers. To think that another intellect the equal of Hermes could not arise from it to create an Anti-Meteion is like believing Einstein is the only intellect of note in our own history.

So...

Regarding your quips about SHB being lauded for nuance, whereas the same folks aren't lauding Endwalker... It's like you don't realize that Endwalker presented a morally grey anti-villain, and the rub isn't that she's morally grey. The rub is that she is morally grey. Grey as a storm cloud. Yet, rather than embrace that greyness. Rather than give our cast and narrative properly characterized reflections on it. Rather than have any of the cast take issue with it... Endwalker uses that cast to trumpet, "Nah, she's clean. It was for the best. Her words and actions aren't contradictions. We can say she was doing it for noble reasons, say what she did was noble. By the way, it became a prophecy thanks to the time loop. We should use Hydaelyn's words as a guide and lodestone for our hearts." They even had that nuanced villain from SHB jump on her hype train, both in Elpis and in Ultima Thule. He spent 12,000 years opposed to her. Where is the narrative cohesion?

In other words, FFXIV had pretty cut and dry villains up until SHB. They then dipped their toe in the nuance water. People were like hell yeah, good story good! Then, came Endwalker. From how they wrote this narrative and its cast, it's clear they wanted to go back to cut and dry. Of course, there's no way for them to do that now, because they've soaked their narrative with nuance. In short, they committed to backpedaling to try and avoid a common trope with Hydaelyn(Great Good was Evil all along). As well as get their narrative back to villains are villains, heroes are heroes.

It works for most folks, because most of XIV's playerbase weren't here for the nuance. They were here for the music, feels, pretty characters, colors, and WoW replacement. Endwalker does all of that gloriously, but it is also the first time that XIV's narrative has actually combatted its own logical progression. It suffers so much for that, but people do not care. They consume.

[EaraGrace]

It works for most folks, because most of XIV's playerbase weren't here for the nuance. They were here for the music, feels, pretty characters, colors, and WoW replacement. Endwalker does all of that gloriously, but it is also the first time that XIV's narrative has actually combatted its own logical progression. It suffers so much for that, but people do not care. They consume.

Here we go again. Just claim the people who like it have their brains turned off and that's that. And folks wonder why this discussion is a dumpster fire.

Between the attempts to portray those who defend Endwalker as low brow media consumers and the desperate attempts to paint over the Ancients flaws and portray the Sundering as wholly unjustified (as if that wouldn't make Hydaelyn a straight up villain ), its little wonder these discussions become so heated. Its clear folks have diametrically opposed viewpoints on the way the story should go.

I think a key thing here is the writer's outlook, because I'm not sure who it is originating from specifically, but the idea of a civilisation becoming too comfortable and grinding to a halt and decline comes up right back in the first lorebook describing the rise and decline of the Allagan empire.

So if this concept is something a core writer holds as a concept to be a natural course of civilisation, then they may not feel a need to foreshadow it heavily when they use it again.

Maybe it's Ishikawa, maybe it's someone else, maybe it's a pervasive idea among the dev/writing team. But the earlier mention of it makes me think it's something they saw as already inherently possible, not a scenario they invented for that one setting alone.

Ishikawa wrote the Crystal Tower raids as well so I agree.

[tokinokanatae]

(as if that wouldn't make Hydaelyn a straight up villain )

I'll probably regret asking, but I feel compelled to anyway. Are you trolling?

The point people are making is that her actions are already morally ambiguous. Asking the narrative to acknowledge that--as it already has in the questline under discussion--does not fundamentally change anything about Hydaelyn's motivations or what you like about her.

Unless the only thing you like about her is that the Scions are united in how much they like her.

[EaraGrace]

I'll probably regret asking, but I feel compelled to anyway. Are you trolling?

The point people are making is that her actions are already morally ambiguous. Asking the narrative to acknowledge that--as it already has in the questline under discussion--does not fundamentally change anything about Hydaelyn's motivations or what you like about her.

Unless the only thing you like about her is that the Scions are united in how much they like her.

What your asking for is different from what I was responding to and what many are arguing for in this thread. The problem is changing the narrative, not offering more perspectives on it. Making the Sundering anything but necessary makes it morally unjustifiable in every way. Changing the circumstances of the single most consequential act she ever committed would fundsmanetally change her place in the narrative you have to recognize that.

. Yes, theoretically they could have had some other supergenius researcher create an Anti-Meteion... somehow... I don't know how, given what we know about her, but sure let's go with that. It's just as conceivable they wouldn't though, particularly given no small number of them were offing themselves in Zodiark's name out of regressive nostalgia after the Final Days.

It’s honestly an even less likely possibility when you consider you wouldn’t be making an Anti-Meteion, but an Anti-Every-Civilization-Meteion-Found. The being the Ancients would need to create would have to be able to manipulate Dynamis, be able to resist and overcome the feelings and emotions of innumerable dead worlds, all while not giving to despair themselves as they find out the truth of existence. Its a bar no other species met.

As with some lines pertaining to the Scions in Endwalker, that quote kind of bugged me because it's framing the sundered as being "better" then the Ancients when the individuals being tested were really not representative of mankind as a whole.

Both sundered and unsundered alike had droves of people who succumbed to the effects of dynamis, yet both also had those who managed to persevere and survive.

Which was, incidentally, Venats point. She had faith humanity could overcome despair, given they faced it. The problem is who the hell would want to? What parent wouldn’t surrender everything to bring back a child? What empathetic person would reject the chance to right a wrong? Unlike the Sundered, the Unsundered had the power to simply choose not to face those things. With Zodiark around you almost certainly never have to worry about losing a family member again. Or suffering from some horrific injury. He was made to answer their calls for salvation, and both the end scene of Elpis and the 5.3 story show he would respond to those desires.

So she forced the trial. “From that temptation, I sunder us.” And humanity found a way forward.

[Cilia]

I've always had an incredible amount of time for my favorite pastime, video games, and in general I play the game almost everyday (though this has waned this summer between Elden Ring and patch lull). Forum perusal only takes a couple of hours. /shrug I often replay the story, sometimes for extra swag!

That wasn't aimed at anyone specific, you know, just like... people make such lengthy arguments over minutiae and cite single sentences as pivotal bits of evidence for a given interpretation, drag around interviews with Yoshi-P for easy citation, etc. I'm just not sure where some people find the time to play, considering. Keep it succinct, y'know? (I gots ta get my Archfiend Attire before season's end in a few weeks, one rank a day oughta do it. Right?)

Anyway...

Re: It wasn't portrayed as a noble act etc.

Like hell it wasn't! It was given an entire damn metaphor scene which dodged all of its immediate specifics, complete with rousing demagoguery. By a literal demagogue. Which went on to try and impart more of an importance on her suffering than those she assaulted. Which was then followed up by a literal Y'shtola quote being, "Far be it from me to refute Hydaelyn's own words... Yet even if her actions were neither kind nor just, we can give them a nobler meaning."

There isn't any speculation to be had in the contrary. Within story specifics(the, to get our current narrative, duh), sure, but the issue arises with the setting we were given for the Ancients. We were given a race of people who could create anything with a snap of their fingers. To think that another intellect the equal of Hermes could not arise from it to create an Anti-Meteion is like believing Einstein is the only intellect of note in our own history.

Even within that selfsame cutscene we have Venat talking about how horrible what she's done is ("I breathe fire and torment. I birth a world of suffering to mire and plague."), and ultimately what Y'shtola is saying there is that they should make her suffering and sacrifices (which include her innocence, life, and soul, as well as ~12,500 years of physical and emotional agony in solitude) meaningful. Once the truth is out nobody is under illusions that Venat's hands aren't stained with blood and sin, but it happened, they wouldn't exist otherwise, and all they can do is make the best of it.

Dynamis was a largely unknown force in the universe even amongst Hermes' closest colleagues. Even Venat, likely the most worldy of the Ancients, had heard little about it. Yes, theoretically they could have had some other supergenius researcher create an Anti-Meteion... somehow... I don't know how, given what we know about her, but sure let's go with that. It's just as conceivable they wouldn't though, particularly given no small number of them were offing themselves in Zodiark's name out of regressive nostalgia after the Final Days.

And not all of the Ancients were as powerful or talented as Emet-Selch, or the Convocation, etc. Erichthonios shows us that not all of the Ancients could "create anything with a snap of their fingers," and they still worked on equivalent exchange.

In other words, FFXIV had pretty cut and dry villains up until SHB. They then dipped their toe in the nuance water. People were like hell yeah, good story good! Then, came Endwalker. From how they wrote this narrative and its cast, it's clear they wanted to go back to cut and dry. Of course, there's no way for them to do that now, because they've soaked their narrative with nuance. In short, they committed to backpedaling to try and avoid a common trope with Hydaelyn(Great Good was Evil all along). As well as get their narrative back to villains are villains, heroes are heroes.

It works for most folks, because most of XIV's playerbase weren't here for the nuance. They were here for the music, feels, pretty characters, colors, and WoW replacement. Endwalker does all of that gloriously, but it is also the first time that XIV's narrative has actually combatted its own logical progression. It suffers so much for that, but people do not care. They consume.

Um... after A Realm Reborn, all of the villains have been given sympathetic backstories (except Thordan, maybe), even if it was acknowledged they ultimately needed to be put down. Conversely even before Legacy ended the protagonists were doing questionable things, like Louisoix summoning demi-primal incarnations of the Twelve in a desperate gamble to stop the Calamity. The antagonists having "good" reasons for their actions and the protagonists doing shady things is... absolutely not something new in Shadowbringers or Endwalker. At least not by my reckoning.

Also are you seriously saying people who liked Endwalker are braindead? That's kind of funny, because I've seen arguments that go in the complete opposite direction suggesting they're overthinking things (i.e. the philosophical underpinnings). So which is it? Cuz if it's the former just let me enjoy my mindless entertainment; if it's the latter I'll gladly elucidate the existentialist philosophy behind the story. Maybe even throw in character analysis of Moxxi's Heist of the Handsome Jackpot, the only piece of Borderlands 3 content worth a damn story-wise, just for fun.

Lemme know, ayy!

[Vyrerus]

(I gots ta get my Archfiend Attire before season's end in a few weeks, one rank a day oughta do it. Right?)

Lemme know, ayy!

(I'm not sure. I've never been invested in seasonal PVP for glams. I only occasionally PVP for standard Wolf Marks stuff that looks good in the moment. Godspeed, Cilia!)

Even within that selfsame cutscene we have Venat talking about

They had to give her some commentary of the truth of what she did, but it's all after her glorious speech to nameless Ancients. It would have been far better if they'd showed us everything as it actually happened, since you know, The Echo usually does just that, and up until then none of those Rift Memory crystals had shown metaphorical summarizations rather than actuality. I would have liked to see Hydaelyn's followers offer up their lives to imbue her with the power to contest Zodiark. I want to see it all. Not platitudes and half-hearted admittances of guilt.


As far as nobody being under illusions... it would have been so, so very nice if the cast had commented on her actions at all, ya know, to demonstrate what you said. They largely don't. Not after the WoL giving them the skinny on the Elpis arc, nor after the battle to the death with Hydaelyn. Just Y'shtola's scriptwriter driven stuff, almost as if it's an obligation rather than the most pivotal moment of the epic's history.

And a lot of physics were unknown to Einstein, but others improved upon his ideas or expanded them not too shortly after. It's also precisely because we know everything about Meteion that formulation of an anti-Meteion could be done. They even, at that point, had an "almighty" Zodiark who could help with the solution.

In the realm of concepts and ideas, one need not the power. They merely need provide the idea to those with the means. Mind over matter.

Um... after A Realm Reborn, all of the villains have been given sympathetic backstories

Mmmm, no.

Thordan in Heavensward is the stereotypical JRPG evil religious figurehead. His backstory is that he violated his vow of celibacy and had Aymeric with another unsighted mom(SHOW US THE MOMS SE!). Other than that he prolonged a war he could have actually ended at anytime in a bid for everlasting godhood and power. (SHOW US THE MOMS SE!) Behind him were the Ascians, who at the time were still moustache twirling Saturday morning cartoons.

Zenos in Stormblood doesn't have his backstory in game. And you can only be sympathetic to him in game if you're like him on some level, depressed thrillseeker/raider. Very largely an unsympathetic character. Some major characters hoping to be the ones who kill him(Hien, Raubahn). Literally a psychopath who butchered his own soldiers. Registered as much in Yotsuyu's mental trauma as her crappy family.

1.0 was a different beast altogether.

Ah, I'm reminded of that interviewing tactic, "So you're saying?" "But you're saying." "So you mean" While inserting something not said, only inferred. It's that people who enjoy Endwalker's story whole heartedly are invincibly ignorant (of course everyone in audience of our discussions are vincibly ignorant). Even if they did want to know the full gravity of the story, they would choose to shy away from the effort because it spoils their fun and good vibes.

If you wanna wax philosophical about the story, dive right in. I'm not sure you'll come up with any take I haven't already seen or thought of, but I'm game to have FFXIV compared to Borderlands 3. Or learn anything about Borderlands 3...

Ante up!

[Alleo]

I happen to agree that it was a necessity, if a grim one, something I can probably stomach easier because I'm not enamored with any of the Ancients or their civilization and am philosophically opposed to their ideal of perfection. Just me though.

I really get the feeling that for some players Venat would have only been fine if she was pure evil. That they could say that we were "stupid" for believing in her and that she did temper the WoL. Yet instead of making her totally good or totally bad they made her grey.

Maybe I am wrong with these thoughts but honestly seeing how even in Shadowbringers the tone got harsher on the forum, I really believe that some just wanted the "I told you so" moment in this expansion. That SE would use the trope of "God was evil the whole time".

I really love what they did with the situation. They could have easily left the Ascians where they were in ARR. Evil entities that we kill. So liking those would simply mean that you like the evil guys without much behind it. Yet they gave them a background, even showed us their old time and made the WoL connect to them. They made these characters into good written villians. Instead of being angry that SE dared to make Venat/Hydealyn into a more grey character, be happy that they took their time to give your favorite characters a good story.

So just like someone not liking Emet has to accept that their character dramatically reaches towards him, you have to accept that the WoL is also fine with Venat.

[Lurina]

The Sundering is not portrayed as a noble act; it is portrayed as a grim necessity, an "I did what I had to do" moment. Venat's suffering is portrayed as a noble thing, and given what she sacrifices and sacrifices for, I can't really fault that.

It's been said many times before at this stage, but it bears repeating that a lot of these "is the Sundering justified/necessary" arguments feel a bit silly to me because FFXIV is a fantasy setting, and like most fantasy settings, it is built upon contrivance rather than any hard logic or rules. It could become necessary to enchant our weapons with toothpaste in the next patch if a portal to the candy dimension opens.

Though the situation is vague enough that you can build an argument on that basis, it is ultimately not a dubious thing to happen because it's mechanically unjustified within the fiction. It's dubious because the writing team consciously chose to create a scenario in which the only way the world could be saved was through the wholesale extermination of millions of people, and then encouraged us to view that extermination as a moment of necessary growth for civilization. The story asks you to abstractly dehumanize a group of humans as unfixably broken people that must be cast aside for the greater good for a combination of cultural and biological reasons.

I understand what they were going for, but it is creepy.

My far greater issue with it was the way they attempted to legitimise the sundering. It had to happen for the story to take place as it did, which I accept. What I am far less fond of is the suggestion that, over and above this, it was either necessary (i.e. the ancients would not find a way to deal with it even if told the full truth; I don't think the story even managed to make this case) or the notion that it was the best possible outcome (the twaddle about "utopias", "perfection", strawmen to this effect, etc.), coupled with not really depicting what it entailed.

The "utopia will remove life's luster and make people lose their will to live eventually!" stuff still bothers me immensely, especially noticing that theme more in Ishikawa's earlier writing - like the whole concept of the Allagan Empire being prosperous and peaceful for too long, and so becoming "decadent" and therefore evil. It's a cultural trope that doesn't really have any grounding in reality, tied up in misunderstandings of societal decay as something rooted in people getting too comfortable. Probably originating in myths spread by the church about the fall of Rome, where it all fell apart because they had too many orgies.