Tales from the Dawn

[Rulakir]

So, ultimately they stuck with the lore of the Anyder cutscene in ShB where they didn't know anything beyond the plan was to pacify Zodiark. Glad to have further confirmation to end that debate.

I still find it problematic their fervent pursuit of the future was at the cost of leaving the 75% who'd sacrificed themselves in indefinite purgatory. I suppose if the other 11 people were as enthralled with Venat as the Watcher was that'd explain a lot.

I was hoping for a Watcher focused short story for Venat, but this one was disappointing. I didn't realize at least 2/3 of it would be him going on endlessly about what a brilliant and perfect jewel she was.

[Lurina]

I was hoping for a Watcher focused short story for Venat, but this one was disappointing. I didn't realize at least 2/3 of it would be him going on endlessly about what a brilliant and perfect jewel she was.

Honestly, the Watcher basing his actions on being really horny rather than any sort of coherent ideology was probably the most reasonable part of the story.

[Iscah]

But while it is a very nice story, it's the absolute worst pick for an opener in my book. Given how much of Endwalker was about moving on from the past, freeing ourselves from its shackles and carving our own way into the future, we sure are spending an awful lot of stories stuck in that past.

"Tales From" is prettymuch always about going deeper into the specific expansion that has just wrapped up. I would be disappointed if we weren't going into Endwalker in more depth.

That said, I was expecting a narrative from the Watcher but I was hoping it would be a bit more substantial. It just has a lot of words without going much deeper into their motivations, and I continue to feel like the writers can't actually decide how the Sundering played out and are leaving it vague intentionally.

(I really hope they just don't reference back to the Sundering at all, going forward, and I can slot in my own imagined version of the narrative over the top.)