Tales from the Dawn

[MikkoAkure]

I was saying the other day that I wish we had a Tales from the Dawn that goes over the time period of the Final Days. Ask and ye shall receive. My thoughts:


The Bad:
I would've preferred a point of view from someone who isn't so enamored by Venat that he's kissing the ground she walks upon. The view we got also didn't exactly go over everything that happened and the whole situation during that time with everyone's thoughts, but it's something at least.

I think Venat's continued withholding of information isn't a good idea and I don't know why the writers keep doubling down on it. I think all of Elpis' storyline would have been neatly tied with a bow had Elidibus' warning that you can't change the past been a prophecy and that everyone except for the WoL lost their memories. It would lead to a stronger Venat character who did all the things she would have done anyway without the benefit of outsider knowledge, make her less ambiguously good, and removed the complicated timeline nonsense.


The Good:
It confirmed my suspicions since ShB that Amaurotine society wouldn't be able to move forward after creating their own god, and that it factored into Venat's decisions.

It also confirmed that Venat's beliefs led to her wandering the world, helping people out, and solidifying her conviction while also giving her a viewpoint different from the rest of the Convocation.

[Lurina]

It confirmed my suspicions since ShB that Amaurotine society wouldn't be able to move forward after creating their own god, and that it factored into Venat's decisions.

That's another thing. The story tells us the reasoning of Venat's faction in abstract, but it still keeps the details of the scenario super vague. Why was it a sure thing they'd never move forward? It makes it come across as mass-murder based on a vibe. Why not elaborate a bit?

I can understand why you'd want to keep it simple in the MSQ, but this story would have been a great chance to at least show-not-tell the basis for the faction's beliefs and expand on the scenario given at the end of Elpis. Were the sacrifices sapient beings? Or if they weren't, maybe the Amaurotines haste in trying to bring back their old world would have prematurely killed the planet again? Or was Zodiark not actually able to bring the dead back and would have just needed more and more sacrifices forever? Or maybe Zodiark had tempered the populations slightly and made future change literally impossible? Give us something. It can't have been just about dynamis stuff or whatever, because her followers didn't even know about Meteion, apparently.

Since they're not tonally pivoting to make Venat come across as morally grey (or at least, not here), it would be so easy to elaborate slightly and have her come across more like the heroic figure they apparently intend instead, but they're just not doing it. I don't get it!

[MikkoAkure]

That's another thing. The story tells us the reasoning of Venat's faction in abstract, but it still keeps the details of the scenario super vague. Why was it a sure thing they'd never move forward? It makes it come across as mass-murder based on a vibe. Why not elaborate a bit?

Were the sacrifices sapient beings? Or if they weren't, maybe the Amaurotines haste in trying to bring back their old world would have prematurely killed the planet again? Or was Zodiark not actually able to bring the dead back and would have just needed more and more sacrifices forever? Or maybe Zodiark had tempered the populations slightly and made future change literally impossible? Give us something. It can't have been just about dynamis stuff or whatever, because her followers didn't even know about Meteion, apparently.

Yeah, I kept thinking through each of those possibilities during ShB and it boggles the mind why they decided to sit on it for so long and end up giving us the Dynamis response they did in the EW MSQ. Elaborating on the consequences to Amaurotine society and the future of the Star because of Zodiark's creation, making a satisfactory explanation to why Hydaelyn needs to shackle Him, and making Venat lose her memories at Kairos with the others, only for them all to remember together after death would have made the end to Endwalker a lot better in my opinion.

They gave us a lot of complicated lore in Shadowbringers so I don't think that explaining it in the MSQ in Endwalker in a better way would be worse than what we got with a vague explanation of the events in a not entirely canon condensed cutscene after introducing an entirely new form of magic we had no concept for before. We had a whole lecture scene in Sharlayan about different types of aether and I'd be all for the game sitting us down again like that to explain why people did the things they did if it makes more people understand the game and characters' motivations better.

[RyuDragnier]

That's another thing. The story tells us the reasoning of Venat's faction in abstract, but it still keeps the details of the scenario super vague. Why was it a sure thing they'd never move forward? It makes it come across as mass-murder based on a vibe. Why not elaborate a bit?

They basically had the power of a god in their hands, allowing them to rewrite the rules of reality, bring back the dead, etc etc. Makes it so they don't need to worry about future problems, their god will solve all of it, so they get complacent and basically go "God will fix it" every time something comes up. There's no learning in such a world, nothing to strive for, and as we know the Amaurotine society was basically built on learning and striving to make the world a better place. Zodiark was ironically the thing that would destroy their very way of life just by existing.

[Lurina]

They basically had the power of a god in their hands, allowing them to rewrite the rules of reality, bring back the dead, etc etc. Makes it so they don't need to worry about future problems, their god will solve all of it, so they get complacent and basically go "God will fix it" every time something comes up. There's no learning in such a world, nothing to strive for, and as we know the Amaurotine society was basically built on learning and striving to make the world a better place. Zodiark was ironically the thing that would destroy their very way of life just by existing.

Okay, but again: Vibe-based mass murder. This is the story asking us to accept the Hydaelyn faction (assuming she did tell them what the Sundering was going to do) was okay with identity-deathing everyone on the planet and condemning the lives which would follow to millenia of hardship over what was essentially a cultural problem that is not explicitly defined as harming anyone. This makes them come across as bonkers ideologues, not heroes.

Like, imagine if in the real world, we discover some sort of technology - replicators or some junk, IDK - that makes us decadent and culturally stagnant. No one, or at least no one in their right mind, would say that an appropriate solution to this would be to nuke the planet and everyone on it back to the stone age. It's moon logic morality that the writers could have easily sidestepped.

[TheSuperior]

Okay, but again: Vibe-based mass murder. This is the story asking us to accept the Hydaelyn faction (assuming she did tell them what the Sundering was going to do) was okay with identity-deathing everyone on the planet and condemning the lives which would follow to millenia of hardship over what was essentially a cultural problem that is not explicitly defined as harming anyone. This makes them come across as bonkers ideologues, not heroes.

Like, imagine if in the real world, we discover some sort of technology - replicators or some junk, IDK - that makes us decadent and culturally stagnant. No one, or at least no one in their right mind, would say that an appropriate solution to this would be to nuke the planet and everyone on it back to the stone age. It's moon logic morality that the writers could have easily sidestepped.

That technology is called the internet and everything that makes up McDonalds and I fully support the total annihilation of one of them.

[Brinne]

Okay, but again: Vibe-based mass murder. This is the story asking us to accept the Hydaelyn faction (assuming she did tell them what the Sundering was going to do) was okay with identity-deathing everyone on the planet and condemning the lives which would follow to millenia of hardship over what was essentially a cultural problem that is not explicitly defined as harming anyone. This makes them come across as bonkers ideologues, not heroes.

Listen, Lurina, if my personal belief in a hypothetical about human behavior that hasn't come to pass yet, but I think probably will, isn't enough to warrant the unilateral eradication of an entire race of people, then what is, huh?