Who knew the 6.15 Omega Quests… (Spoilers)

[Lurina]

Ok here is where we disagree then. I hold it as self evident fact that without novel experiences all people will experience ennui and discontent.

I'm trying to find a way to word this in a way that won't come across as rude, but I feel like you just aren't grasping what I mean when I say 'self-evident truth'.

A self-evident truth is just that. It's something you can empirically or logically prove beyond a shadow of a doubt. Belief doesn't factor into it.

The premise of "all people will experience ennui and discontent" by definition does not meet this criteria because it's impossible to prove. In fact, you can actively disprove it to a limited degree; some people simply do not experience boredom at all because the attention center of their brain doesn't behave normally.

What you are saying is that Endwalker having an unspoken premise to its argument based on a subjectively believed truth rather than a self-evident one does not bother you because you share that belief. And that's great. But it's not a defense of how it constructs its argument-- The fact and inference aspect should only be based on that which is provable. Unless, again, you don't believe it's reasonable to hold stories to this standard.

I'm very glad we've included the Good Place in this discussion, and you've specifically used it as a contrasting example to Endwalker, because it actually doesn't support your position on this. Ennui in the Good Place is inevitable, universal and absolute. All the major characters immediately agree that boredom is the core problem with the actual "good place," with our main insight into heaven immediately stating that "when perfection goes on forever, you become this glassy eyed mush person." The characters then immediately worry they'll become like the everyone else, and look to find a solution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23IHH2E38Ec

Now perhaps I'm missing where they suggest this is only a thing some of the denizens experience, but to me the show makes the exact same leap you're criticizing Endwalker for. And their solution is Ra-La in door form! I don't see how this is anyway less absolute than what Endwalker is saying with the Plenty.

The Good Place is very obviously an anti-hedonist show, and I disagree with some of what it ultimately tries to suggest just as I do with Endwalker. But I think the key difference is in how it shows people responding to a perfect world. In the original Good Place (as in the location, not the show) people exhaust all new pleasurable experiences and become placid, but aren't presented as actively miserable - a life predicated on nothing but pleasure has led them to being kinda numbly content. The characters frame this as terrible, but that's more them being the voice of the thesis than that being part of the premise of the argument.

Ultimately, the show ends up having a pretty nuanced take on a hedonistic paradise. The door isn't created as nothing more than a mass-suicide device to end the inhabitants pleasure-induced suffering, but because it asserts that eternal pleasure becomes more meaningful when the possibility to end it exists. It even provides an alternative to eventually choosing death in Tahani's ending - rather than pure indulgence, it's possible to still find purpose and meaning in pursuing a goal even in a world without suffering.

That said, I can see an argument that I'm reaching here and that the initial state of the Good Place is still predicated on an assumption, just a milder one, in which case I'd apply my same criticism to it. Still, I feel like seeing you invoke it in this way has kinda helped me understand the way you think about this stuff, and why we don't really seem able to understand each other, even beyond this specific discussion.

Like I said earlier, it feels like you have kind of an absolutist way of thinking, and you're sorta projecting that absolutism in how you judge fiction. EW and TGP are both saying X=Y at their core, but the way they get there couldn't be more different - in general, The Good Place is quite reserved in its philosophical judgements, and always takes a lot of time to qualify them in a way EW kinda doesn't. That's why I liked it and found it convincing despite not already agreeing; life is complicated, and I don't think any outlook has all the answers.

Very little is universally true when it comes to people, and I appreciate deeply when writers don't try to assert what is true to them as fundamental without first qualifying things and expressing a little self-doubt, both tonally and in their reasoning. But if you don't value that in fiction so long as the core philosophical assertions are the same, then there's no distinction between Endwalker's argument and The Good Place's and, thus, no rational reason to like one and not the other.

[Rulakir]

"Not chastised as much"? Try at all. The fact that the sundering is still prefaced as being a "necessary" evil absolves Venat of any wrong doing. Not a single non-Ascian character has a negative word to say about what she's done. She is the only one who speaks ill of it, but she has no regrets. At most she says she had bouts of despair ("I've literally cut mankind down to size and they're still not acting the way I want them to, wah!"), but she'd just look at the WoL poster above her bed and feel better.

Also, anyone who says we don't know what the sundering did is either being disingenuous or is in willful ignorance and denial. We know that it destroyed mankind, body and soul, to the extent they became "malformed creatures" who no longer had the ability to use language let alone magic, were kicked back to the stone age at best (even that's probably being generous), and had to re-evolve while more than likely dying to things like the common cold and infections from basic injuries given comments about how easily they died. Bearing in mind this wasn't a condemnation of just the Ancients, but every living being upon the star.

As for the nefarious Emet-Selch, it sure would be something if someone knew what sort of person he was and rather than make sure he could not inflict his villainy upon the world for millennia actually spared him so he could do exactly that. What kind of crazed individual would hazard such a liability? Probably the same one who knew that a 64% rejoined WoL was their ideal for defeating Meteion and still chose to sunder everything more times than necessary. I wonder why that could be given that said person would've known if the Source failed all the shards would die unless, I don't know, they were purposely made as fodder for the Ascians? Oh, but that's silly, what sort of contemptible person would purposely set up 13 worlds to die as long as their science project on the Source worked out? They'd have to be some kind of narcissist, an antagonist worse than even Emet-Selch himself! Certainly not the heroine of the story lauded for saving the world!

Regarding dynamis, it was a mutually exclusive reason combined with The Plenty. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too. Believing that the Ancients stood no chance against Meteion without being sundered would mean that Venat never tried anything. What would be the point in getting the Ancients to change if they still couldn't beat her? Otherwise, you have to accept that the Ancients could have devised a way to overcome her despite their aetheric density and that Venat sundered them because they wouldn't conform to her ideology.

Plus, for the umpteenth time, The Plenty alone was terrible reasoning. Venat was, for whatever reason, specifically triggered by Meteion's description of Deka-hepta so much so that she deemed placing the star and mankind at exponentially higher risk of every other 'Dead End' worth it just to avoid that one particular outcome. This was also my issue with Omega's assessment. You can't posit that the Final Days were somehow beneficial to mankind while not logically addressing that the sundering had only barely managed to avert one fate, while making the consequences of the Song of Oblivion exponentially worse, and causing the star to be vulnerable to fates they weren't previously. Not to mention that mankind didn't learn anything from either iteration of the Final Days. No sooner than the Ancients managed to stop it and restore the world to being inhabitable than Venat enacted her racial cleansing and all knowledge was purposely(!) lost. The sundered outside of isolated areas also didn't experience them in any meaningful way. So what, exactly, did the Final Days do to 'force people to change or perish'? Much like the rest of EW, it's nonsensical.

[Lyth]

If you want to find fault with Venat's decision to sunder the world and enervate the Amaurotines, that's fine. But blaming her for being unable to stop the Ascians from slaughtering millions is a really weak argument. It's just another variation on the theme of 'I know that Emet was a mass murderer who destroyed seven worlds full of people, but I'm okay with his actions because...' I think he'd be insulted if you offered him such a cowardly way out. Emet has agency. He chose to walk that path.

With regards to consent, some actions are intrinsically non-consensual. You cannot have a consensual theft or murder, that's just a contradiction of terms. Not only is it a bizarre misuse of the word, it flippantly detracts from actual issues around consent. If you really wanted to have a discussion around issues of consent, you'd be much better off looking at another Convocation member, namely Mitron, and his treatment of Gaia.

Again, all this seems less about adhering to some highfalutin moral code and more about trying to justify the actions of a really awful group of people by pointing fingers at their opponents. Which is really just digging yourself a hole. Why do any of these characters need to be virtuous in the first place? They aren't. You lot certainly aren't. Just enjoy them for what they are, rather than trotting out the same false indignancy.

[Lauront]

But why would you try argue any of this from a standpoint of supposed 'moral superiority'? It's just so tiresome and boring. It forces you desperately redirect any scrutiny of Emet's actions, when they're obviously heinous. You're unnecessarily digging yourself a hole. Just accept that he's wonderfully evil and cherish him for it. Your mistake was in thinking that he needed to be 'morally right' to be valued in the first place.

I know you're arguing in the worst possible faith and are merely derailing the discussion to distract from any debate actually being had, but this is amusing - we could just swap out the word "Emet" in the above for "Venat" and we wouldn't need to change a word other than the name and gendering.

Oh, and we have this tidbit from Yoshi:

I do get that Emet-Selch is really popular but I sort of agree with Alphinaud when Emet is talking about judging people and think, “What right does he have to do that?”, and that might be applicable to Venat too, like “What right does she have to do that?” with showing various things about the Ancients and how different they were from us as people and how they were sort of the same, so I think if you go back and look at all of the different parts including the side quest including the Ancients in them, you might find them interesting.

Of course, I am going to set aside that we have seen sundered antagonists render "judgements" of a very similar nature.

As Veloran put it, this isn't really either/or, because...

I'm just going to say it: The Ascians are, in essence, Venat's controlled opposition. She knew what they would do, and paved the way for their existence, while they were unknowingly acting as agents of her plans. Even if Emet-Selch hadn't come out and said this in Ultima Thule, as many people have been pointing out in this thread their proclivities towards spreading chaos and resetting civilization through great destruction every few thousand years is exactly what Venat's ideals call for.

After all, as Yoshi put it:

As you think back to the text towards the end Emet-Selch did imply that Venat let him live unsundered. In fact Venat did intentionally leave a tiny floor in her Sundering attack - a crack that Emet-Selch can wiggle through. Sort of like…yes it was a powerful attack but intentionally chose to do it in this fashion.

As this poster put it, though:

"I have no problem directly stating something." Then proceeds to do a mealymouthed dance around, "Sundering? What is it? What did it do? Who can say, really?"

Of course the Rejoinings were bad. Stop pretending like you're the only one on these forums capable of a nuanced appreciation of anything. It's weird and it makes you look stupid.

Quite.

We could also refer to the below as an instance of the pot calling the kettle black:

whereas the Amaurotines just come across as overbearing and narcissistic.

I'd dispute that characterisation in the case of the kettle, but for the metaphorical pot, well...

Though I am sure you are concocting your next conspiracy about who is whose alt.

I think you need to take a break from your little stint as self-appointed forum "inquisitor".

[Lyth]

There's a reason why mirror matches don't work out in chess.

And that's where it all falls apart, doesn't it, my old new friend? I have no problem with Venat and Emet both performing reprehensible actions, and I can still enjoy the both of them as characters despite it. You, on the other hand, seem inordinately invested to prove that the Ascians were somehow morally justified in all this. That's an enormous burden of proof to bear. I don't need the moral high ground, but you do.

But please don't be cross with me.

[Vyrerus]

The Good Place

I can see why The Good Place is being compared to The Plenty, but it's still not a one for one.

The Good Place assumes that people will still be people in the afterlife, so that it can accomplish its goal of being relatable, meme-able, and understandable to a general audience. Its biggest presumption is that afterlife consciousness is so similar to flesh and blood living that everyone is still subject to weaknesses only brought about by living in a physical body. There is no imagination beyond the physical, no inspection of what it would be like to be intangible. There is little spirituality. The Plenty are beings that live forever in whatever their bodies are composed of. They aren't in an afterlife.

Also the door isn't presented as death. The characters at the end of The Good Place had experienced life so many times till they proved to be good people they had already experienced death hundreds of times. The Door is presented as a mysterious end, so unknowable that even the omniscient Janet doesn't know what actually happens. Said in the same breath as, "The greatest experiences I've had are every time Jason and I kissed." It's a comedy at the end of the day though, so for as serious as it gets philosophically, it's always quick to unseat its seriousness. It's glib.

Endwalker on the other hand, as you said, doesn't take any time to qualify its philosophical judgments. It presents them, and then it mashes the Forge Ahead button, the presumption being that we don't have time to haggle over details. It is not a comedy, in spite of all the Hummingway tomfoolery.

It's a little bit sad to me that a comedy show better qualifies itself than a game's seriously existential expansion. The show's run time is about 19 hours in total. Endwalkers is roughly 45 hours, depending on how long the gameplay segments take you/how fast you read non-voiced cutscenes. And even more if you do the sidequests.

I can definitely say I enjoyed The Good Place. Mainly for its comedy. Endwalker I was supposed to enjoy for its conclusion to a 10 year story arc, but beyond the shocks in the first half, it fumbled that finale really hard. It was practically a non sequitur with regards to the past stories.

[EaraGrace]

I'm trying to find a way to word this in a way that won't come across as rude, but I feel like you just aren't grasping what I mean when I say 'self-evident truth'.

A self-evident truth is just that. It's something you can empirically or logically prove beyond a shadow of a doubt. Belief doesn't factor into it.

The premise of "all people will experience ennui and discontent" by definition does not meet this criteria because it's impossible to prove. In fact, you can actively disprove it to a limited degree; some people simply do not experience boredom at all because the attention center of their brain doesn't behave normally.

By this definition there are absolutely zero things we can claim are self-evident truths about living beings then. No story talking about the human condition or nature could survive this criticism, as they all make generalizations that one could find individual edge cases for.

But I think the key difference is in how it shows people responding to a perfect world. In the original Good Place (as in the location, not the show) people exhaust all new pleasurable experiences and become placid, but aren't presented as actively miserable - a life predicated on nothing but pleasure has led them to being kinda numbly content. The characters frame this as terrible, but that's more them being the voice of the thesis than that being part of the premise of the argument.

I... don't agree. Beings don't choose death lightly. The cast clearly react like those in the good place are living terrible existences, and immediately work to escape/find a solution. There is every reason to label this a miserable existence. To quote Hypatia from episode 12:

This place kills fun, and passion, and excitement and love, till all you have left are milkshakes.

That's miserable!

Ultimately, the show ends up having a pretty nuanced take on a hedonistic paradise. The door isn't created as nothing more than a mass-suicide device to end the inhabitants pleasure-induced suffering, but because it asserts that eternal pleasure becomes more meaningful when the possibility to end it exists. It even provides an alternative to eventually choosing death in Tahani's ending - rather than pure indulgence, it's possible to still find purpose and meaning in pursuing a goal even in a world without suffering.

So I just want to point out the unproven absolutism that is stating that eternal pleasure is more meaningful when the possibility to end it exists. The show doesn't justify that, it just hold's that to be true because of how it perceives human nature. Hell, the quote justifying the suggestion for the final door is:

Every human is a little bit sad all the time because you know you're gonna die. But that knowledge is what gives life meaning.

You've basically been on a neverending vacation. And vacations are only special because they end.

This isn't qualified anymore than Endwalker's statement that ennui will inevitable follow from perfection is. It makes broad sweeping claims about human nature that are just as prone to generalizing, so once again why is it acceptable there and not here?

Hell in the same breath it even makes the same claim you're saying Endwalker is unfounded in holding as true. When Hypatia talks about how she's regaining her motivation to live now that there's an exit she says

I've been dreaming of ending the ennui of this eternal existence for a long time.

Or when Michael talks about how he want's to end his existence too

When you've already designed the ultimate one (a neighborhood), it's kind of a letdown.

So once again it's ennui, an emotion that not everyone feels if we hold you're previous criticism to be true, that ruins paradise. In other words, the show holds it to be self-evident that all people experience ennui and extreme discontent without novel experiences. As the shows creator said

“It’s sort of an inescapable conclusion,” the show’s creator Michael Schur told The Hollywood Reporter. “It doesn’t matter how great things are, if they go on forever they will get boring.”

Very little is universally true when it comes to people, and I appreciate deeply when writers don't try to assert what is true to them as fundamental without first qualifying things and expressing a little self-doubt, both tonally and in their reasoning. But if you don't value that in fiction so long as the core philosophical assertions are the same, then there's no distinction between Endwalker's argument and The Good Place's and, thus, no rational reason to like one and not the other.

To be quite frank I think you are being arbitrary on this. The Good Place asserts universal truths just as much as Endwalker does, it just seems to be like one is more acceptable to you for some other reason. I disagree with you that this is because the Good Place and other media justifies itself better for the reasons I've gone into during our discussion. The other examples deserve the same criticism with the same force, as they do the exact same thing. Or not! I don't think it tanks any story to make these sorts of statements, and in fact I think that's what gives them their power.

[Lurina]

By this definition there are absolutely zero things we can claim are self-evident truths about living beings then. No story talking about the human condition or nature could survive this criticism, as they all make generalizations that one could find individual edge cases for.

I don't know if I agree with that - there are a fair few self-evident truths that apply to all of humanity. Everyone begins as an innocent and gains knowledge and understanding to some degree over time. Everyone conscious has desires in some form, as consciousness exists as a mechanism for pursuing and accomplishing goals. Everyone will die as a matter of thermodynamics. I could go on.

I disagree with the second part too. Most stories that talk about the human condition don't actually try to frame their arguments as utterly universal - after all, most aren't trying to discuss the life and death of the entire universe, and you can just as easily capture most truths by saying "many humans" as "all humans" without venturing into false pretenses. Endwalker goes unusually big not only in scope, but in its moral and philosophical judgements, trying to assert many of them as absolutes.

The thing about writing a story this way (sorta cutting ahead to you thinking it's what makes it powerful in the final line of your post) is that it can evoke an almost life-changing response... From someone who already agrees with what it has to say. If what you want from a work is sheer catharsis, self-skepticism and reservation can actually be a kind of weakness. You want a narrative that will shout what feels true deep in your heart about the world. A narrative that makes you feel seen, like the creator is reaching out and saying, "I wrote this for you". It's validating and affirming - in the way that a neurotic text full of qualifiers could, depending on your personality, never achieve.

But inversely, in asserting those false (or at least, not completely true) absolutes, it compromises its own argument and becomes far worse at actually convincing people who don't already agree. This is why the story of the Ancients looks like movingly written bittersweet tragedy to you and disturbing genocide apologia to me. Endwalker asserts its beliefs about human nature as so self-evidently true it felt comfortable basing a story about the quasi-justified death of an entire world's worth of people on them-- And if you're already on board, the scale just makes the thesis more powerful.

But if you're not... It doesn't do anything to offset that, because it's treating the premises you disagree about as a given. So the dissonance hits you like a truck.

Hm, yeah, I think this kinda cuts to the core of why Endwalker has this group of people so doggedly bothered by it.

good place discourse

I haven't watched The Good Place since the ending came out... Hmmm, I guess I am being a little too nice to it when you lay out all the quotes like that. That's a shame. It didn't feel so preachy and absolutist at the time, but I guess you are in a different mentality watching a comedy than a 40 hour RPG. And time does entrench bias - it definitely had more ideas I agreed with than Endwalker, so I'm probably more inclined to judge it kindly post-hoc.

Like, I especially didn't remember it being so forceful in the way it talked about the door. I'm fine with the show asserting it gives greater definition to life for a lot of people, but it really does come across as being presented as a matter of generality that way...

Still, to give a more lukewarm defense, I do think you're conflating an aggressive thesis with untrue premises at a few points here - a lot of these are just things that the characters do or assert, not that are demonstrated to be self-evidently true. The statements the cast make about ennui, though about humanity, are ultimately just their personal opinions... Though it can be hard to tell with the kinda tone a comedy whether you're meant to understand them as such or not.

And again, it does go along way that it demonstrates an exception with Tahani, even if the means it gives to stave off ennui still aren't pro-hedonist. Even if it does make some bad arguments, I still do think The Good Place expresses more introspection and questions its own themes in general, and stand by what I said in regard to that.

[SentioftheHoukai]

If you want to find fault with Venat's decision to sunder the world and enervate the Amaurotines, that's fine. But blaming her for being unable to stop the Ascians from slaughtering millions is a really weak argument. It's just another variation on the theme of 'I know that Emet was a mass murderer who destroyed seven worlds full of people, but I'm okay with his actions because...' I think he'd be insulted if you offered him such a cowardly way out. Emet has agency. He chose to walk that path.

With regards to consent, some actions are intrinsically non-consensual. You cannot have a consensual theft or murder, that's just a contradiction of terms. Not only is it a bizarre misuse of the word, it flippantly detracts from actual issues around consent. If you really wanted to have a discussion around issues of consent, you'd be much better off looking at another Convocation member, namely Mitron, and his treatment of Gaia.

Again, all this seems less about adhering to some highfalutin moral code and more about trying to justify the actions of a really awful group of people by pointing fingers at their opponents. Which is really just digging yourself a hole. Why do any of these characters need to be virtuous in the first place? They aren't. You lot certainly aren't. Just enjoy them for what they are, rather than trotting out the same false indignancy.

Nobody on these forums has EVER actually said Emet-Selch and the Ascians Three were morally in the right for performing the Rejoinings, rather in the past people have said that they like these characters regardless. And that's OKAY. It doesn't make one a Nazi or a genocide apologist or whatever morally bankrupt example of a villain in real life secretly plotting the downfall of many marginalized peoples after having been inspired by a video game.

Then, in these post-EW days a hearty number of people have taken issue with the fact that the ONE TIME Venat's equally morally questionable omnicidal act is ever questioned is by her own self and frankly it doesn't even seem as though SHE is truly that broken up about it. The Scions have multiple quotes in Shadowbringers that suggest they should have taken issue with Venat's methods in certain scenes in Endwalker, but they did not. Emet-Selch was never once treated as an ally or a friend due to his actions and tagged himself along, but Venat is touted as an all-loving goddess nonstop despite being not so different in the end. We have every right to take issue with this, even if her methods may well have saved the world it doesn't erase the ambiguous morality of her deeds.

[EaraGrace]

I disagree with the second part too. Most stories that talk about the human condition don't actually try to frame their arguments as utterly universal - after all, most aren't trying to discuss the life and death of the entire universe, and you can just as easily capture most truths by saying "many humans" as "all humans" without venturing into false pretenses. Endwalker goes unusually big not only in scope, but in its moral and philosophical judgements, trying to assert many of them as absolutes.

I once again don't think its that unusual, in fact I'd go as far to say you'd have a harder time finding celebrated stories with any sort of moral or message that don't universalize. I don't think we have to agree with Endwalker's premise to recognize that. From Lord of the Rings to Breaking Bad to Crime and Punishment, authors are constantly speaking broadly about existence and humanity and a variety of concepts, all with an authoritative stance and perspective. Whether one wants to agree with Endwalker or any other media's themes is ultimately not what I'm arguing about here in this convo, but whether Endwalker does it differently. I don't think it does.

The thing about writing a story this way (sorta cutting ahead to you thinking it's what makes it powerful in the final line of your post) is that it can evoke an almost life-changing response... From someone who already agrees with what it has to say. If what you want from a work is sheer catharsis, self-skepticism and reservation can actually be a kind of weakness. You want a narrative that will shout what feels true deep in your heart about the world. A narrative that makes you feel seen, like the creator is reaching out and saying, "I wrote this for you". It's validating and affirming - in the way that a neurotic text full of qualifiers could, depending on your personality, never achieve.

But that's sort of the thing, though I do find myself agreeing with Endwalker on a lot, I don't actually have to in order to think it well written or at the very least undeserving of some of this heat. I didn't agree with ShB or it's messages despite how broad they were, but I still consider it to a well crafted piece of fiction. So why is that so difficult to do in this case? I'm sure you can find those who didn't find Heavensward's statements regarding war and generational guilt compelling or agreeable, so why was it ok to have broad generalities there and not here? That's ultimately the question I have to keep asking, because to me that's what the real problem is.

Now we've of course discussed that a bit already and explored what exactly people find issue with. But, as far as I can tell, when we applied those same issues to other forms of media talking about similar topics, they didn't pass that test either. Which kind of brings me to my current position, that it doesn't seem like that's a cardinal sin for a story and not really enough to justify the hate Endwalker has gotten around here.

Still, to give a more lukewarm defense, I do think you're conflating an aggressive thesis with untrue premises at a few points here - a lot of these are just things that the characters do or assert, not that are demonstrated to be self-evidently true. The statements the cast make about ennui, though about humanity, are ultimately just their personal opinions... Though it can be hard to tell with the kinda tone a comedy whether you're meant to understand them as such or not.

I think if a show has a number of characters with different perspectives, archetypes and beliefs agree something is a problem, talk about as if it is a universal one, work to find a solution and then resolve it, then we can confidently conclude the narrative is telling us its a universal issue.

And again, it does go along way that it demonstrates an exception with Tahani, even if the means it gives to stave off ennui still aren't pro-hedonist. Even if it does make some bad arguments, I still do think The Good Place expresses more introspection and questions its own themes in general, and stand by what I said in regard to that.

But I would go as far as to say that Tahani doesn't necessarily represent a third path but a winding version of the already established dichotomy. She does indeed say that she isn't choosing either option, and I do think that's very important, but then I look at the character arc for the person she's basing her new path on, Michael, and seeing how his arc ultimately ends up following that two choice dichotomy, I can’t honestly say she’s really choosing a third option. His decision to become human, suffer, die and then hopefully (the show portrays this as the desired outcome) walking through the Last Door and ending his existence is treated as a beautiful, positive, inevitable thing. Chidi's whole Buddhism speech says that life is like a wave returning to the ocean "where it came from, where it's supposed to be." I do think the show makes it pretty clear what is coming.