Endwalker Story sucked and it's time to admit it

[PawPaw]

?

Nothing of the sort was made clear by the summoning of Zodiark. The world was saved after the first sacrifice, the second sacrifice was to restore the world to some semblance of health again and the third sacrifice would restore the souls of everyone who had given up their lives to stop the Final Days. That would have been it and no, contrary to what you might read on these forums and Reddit, Zodiark is not and never was a Blood God. He doesn't require human souls in order to keep going. In fact, he had not needed a single additional soul since Hydaelyn destroyed the world and decimated all the souls upon it and had been going strong for the past 12k years. He was the one who had been keeping the Source and all of the shards safe all of this time, not Hydaelyn, no matter how much credit the game would like to bestow upon her.

Was there a third option? Who knows? Because the one and only person who actually knew what was causing the Final Days and who knew of the existence of Meteion and the importance of Dynamis didn't feel the need to share that information with absolutely anyone who could have possibly helped find a way to stop it. She didn't even share the knowledge with her loyal followers. And we know that the excuse for Venat's genocide of her people was not because of the sacrifices, but because she, herself thought that they wouldn't be able to change as a people and so she, herself made the decision that they should all be destroyed instead. I'm not listing the definition of genocide here, you are free to go and look it up, but what she did was most certainly genocide.

Meteion was created by an Ancient, no idea why someone would logically deduce that a race of super-scholars would be stumped as to how to come up with a way to combat a creation made by another researcher had they, perhaps, known that this threat existed at all. They weren't all completely ignorant to the existence of Dynamis, they just didn't have a chance to find another way because Venat purposely didn't give it to them. She allowed the sacrifices to be made, knowing that she would need to use Zodiark to enact her plan and then decided that enough was enough and that her utterly traumatized and confused people weren't reacting the way she thought they should, so they all had to go.

And the Ancient's "callous disregard for life"? Really? We must not be playing the same game because my character seems to have no issues whatsoever with taking down man or beast at any time for fun and profit. But turning a butterfly into a robe or destroying rabid beasts who are decimating an ecosystem is obviously where we should all draw the line.

[Lauront]

The point was to show how the ancients' callous disregard for life led to their undoing.

Doesn't bode well for the sundered then, now does it? In fact, Amon did seem quite ready to condemn them as well.

Equally though, it has nothing to do with her own 'test', which was focused on dealing with despair (or how she thought that should be done... granted, "it's complicated"), not anything to do with the above.

[SentioftheHoukai]

Doesn't bode well for the sundered then, now does it? In fact, Amon did seem quite ready to condemn them as well.

Equally though, it has nothing to do with her own 'test', which was focused on dealing with despair (or how she thought that should be done... granted, "it's complicated"), not anything to do with the above.

Yeah, I feel like for as forgettable a character as Amon is (at least to me) people are all too willing and eager to forget just WHY he condemned the Sundered and wanted them all to die. For the sake of those who have chosen to forget for convenience's sake, I'll remind you. Amon's motive was because when he gazed at the Sundered as a people, he saw the same "callous disregard for life" as y'all put it that he saw in his own people. To him, the people of the Star hadn't changed. Nay, if anything they'd gotten worse since having been Sundered in the eyes of the man who'd Judge all of mankind by his vision. For all that y'all like to condemn the Ancients for some moral failing, the Sundered have every vice you see in them multiplied many times over.

As much as I hate Amon's guts, once, just this once to my own horror and consternation I'm gonna have to agree with him. The Sundered he was stuck with were no better than the Ancients who came before. The closest comparison I can make, is likening them to real-life humanity versus a humanity from an anime, book, movie or what have you where all of humanity has superpowers and are thus mechanically and physically superior to real-life humans who lack any sort of extraneous abilities that flaunt the laws that make up reality as we know it to be. Nevertheless, as we so often see these "extra-humans" let's call them will inevitably share mortal life's failings, our vices and our sins. The people we love to hate and denigrate. At the end of the day, we of intelligent stock have no choice but to face the reality that the Ancients were narratively condemned not because of hubris, nor vice, nor any form of moral failing for we ALL possess these things. Nay, the uncomfortable, painful reality of the situation is that the Ancients were killed off because they were DIFFERENT. And THAT is horrifying to me.

[Xylira]

Endwalker's story was, in my opinion, painfully mediocre at best.

The premise wasn't bad, but the execution is what dragged it down. The story felt poorly paced and a bit scatter-brained. Certain sections felt rushed, mainly Garlemald and the fist half of the moon content leading up to Zodiark... which Zodiark ending up being killed off so early into the storyline as some chump trial boss felt like a let down after all of the build up since ARR. Other sections felt like they overstayed their welcome like a lot of the story content involving the Loporrits, or otherwise shouldn't have necessarily been a fully fleshed out zone, like Elpis.

Another main issue I had with the story was it felt like they were trying way too hard to force a feeling like there were some stakes involved, but they leaned too hard on trying to evoke a feeling without actually having any stakes realized. By the time I reached Ultima Thule and the Scions were 'sacrificing' themselves, I was rolling my eyes each time because I knew they wouldn't actually kill them off and they'd all be back safe and sound without so much as a scratch.

Lastly, the 'big bad' being a sad bird girl... yeah, this was just bad. There was so much potential for the end of days to be caused by something immensely interesting. Something akin to the Omicron but worse, some Eldritch cosmic horror, or... anything really. It was such a huge let down when they not only introduced the villain nearly to the end of the story out of left field, but somehow her going teenaged angst mode into full on emo-nihilism turns her into some civilization ending cosmic threat.

[AwesomeJr44]

If you consider Venat to be genocidal, then you must concede that Emet-Selch is also genocidal, despite motivations. If the former "glorifies suffering", the latter cares nothing when causing suffering through calamity after calamity. This speaks of a great disregard and disdain for any creature who does not possess an Ancient's soul. A far cry from the idyllic dreaming of players about the True Goodness of the Ancients. What a god creates, a god can destroy, and, as we learn in both Amaurot and Elpis, they show a distinct lack of empathy for created beings. Even beings that have a soul.

The actions of Emet-Selch are also tainted by their knowledge that not a single Ancient soul that is brought back will ever be whole, given the mess they made of the Void.

So, continue to despise Venat, but you must also provide the same level of that feeling for Emet-Selch as well.

Not necessarily. Nuance is a thing, so although I do dislike that Emet is so eager to commit genocides without any care for if he kills people, I find it to be less despicable than Venat's similar actions. At least in Emet's case, he's the equivalent of a human killing monkeys. Yes, it's bad to go around killing monkeys but when compared to killing other full humans en masse, it's not as evil. Are both genocide? Yes, but one is clearly worse.

(Plus, Venat spared Emet knowing what he'd do, so she's an accomplice to everything he did)

[Delily]

Nothing of the sort was made clear by the summoning of Zodiark. The world was saved after the first sacrifice, the second sacrifice was to restore the world to some semblance of health again and the third sacrifice would restore the souls of everyone who had given up their lives to stop the Final Days. That would have been it and no, contrary to what you might read on these forums and Reddit, Zodiark is not and never was a Blood God. He doesn't require human souls in order to keep going. In fact, he had not needed a single additional soul since Hydaelyn destroyed the world and decimated all the souls upon it and had been going strong for the past 12k years. He was the one who had been keeping the Source and all of the shards safe all of this time, not Hydaelyn, no matter how much credit the game would like to bestow upon her.

I don't get why people think it would stop at three sacrifices. That goes against two pieces of information, the first of which is that primals constantly need aether to sustain themselves. The second is that the plan was ultimately to rejoin all the shards and then sacrifice everyone to Zodiark to remake the world as it once was. People seem determined to paint Hydaelyn as some villain and Zodiark as some savior. In Zodiark's name, the Ascians destroyed six worlds of life, whereas Hydaelyn attempted to stop them. This is a jrpg and a Final Fantasy game, the heroes are the heroes, and the villains are the villains. They may be flawed with mitigating circumstances, but the claim that Hydaelyn is the villain goes against the entire narrative.

Was there a third option? Who knows? Because the one and only person who actually knew what was causing the Final Days and who knew of the existence of Meteion and the importance of Dynamis didn't feel the need to share that information with absolutely anyone who could have possibly helped find a way to stop it. She didn't even share the knowledge with her loyal followers. And we know that the excuse for Venat's genocide of her people was not because of the sacrifices, but because she, herself thought that they wouldn't be able to change as a people and so she, herself made the decision that they should all be destroyed instead. I'm not listing the definition of genocide here, you are free to go and look it up, but what she did was most certainly genocide.

I distinctly recall them explaining that should Venat have told them, it wouldn't have changed many minds. The sheer destruction the flood of dynamis was causing, the reaction of the ancients, etc. Faced with the absolute destruction, people aren't going to calmly sit down and listen, they're going to grab onto the first plan and go with it, which is to summon Zodiark.

Meteion was created by an Ancient, no idea why someone would logically deduce that a race of super-scholars would be stumped as to how to come up with a way to combat a creation made by another researcher had they, perhaps, known that this threat existed at all. They weren't all completely ignorant to the existence of Dynamis, they just didn't have a chance to find another way because Venat purposely didn't give it to them. She allowed the sacrifices to be made, knowing that she would need to use Zodiark to enact her plan and then decided that enough was enough and that her utterly traumatized and confused people weren't reacting the way she thought they should, so they all had to go.

Only Hermes was barely capable of using dynamis. The other ancients were completely unaware of its existence, unable to sense it, unable to use it. We spent a good chunk of time hunting down Meteion because we were the only ones able. The ancients could not have fought Meteion because for most of them, it caused their magic to go out of control. A few ancients were capable of resisting fear, but most of them were susceptible to it. And I bet in a sustained fight, even Hades would succumb to fear.

And the Ancient's "callous disregard for life"? Really? We must not be playing the same game because my character seems to have no issues whatsoever with taking down man or beast at any time for fun and profit. But turning a butterfly into a robe or destroying rabid beasts who are decimating an ecosystem is obviously where we should all draw the line.

Most men you fight are trying to kill you or your friends. Killing someone determined to kill you is not a "callous disregard for life" but self-defense. And killing animals that are destroying an ecosystem or hunting them for materials has been done since the dawn of time. You do realize other animals kill for food and sport? It's not some evil thing, it's a part of existence.

[Thenightvortex]

I don't get why people think it would stop at three sacrifices. That goes against two pieces of information, the first of which is that primals constantly need aether to sustain themselves. The second is that the plan was ultimately to rejoin all the shards and then sacrifice everyone to Zodiark to remake the world as it once was. People seem determined to paint Hydaelyn as some villain and Zodiark as some savior. In Zodiark's name, the Ascians destroyed six worlds of life, whereas Hydaelyn attempted to stop them. This is a jrpg and a Final Fantasy game, the heroes are the heroes, and the villains are the villains. They may be flawed with mitigating circumstances, but the claim that Hydaelyn is the villain goes against the entire narrative.



I distinctly recall them explaining that should Venat have told them, it wouldn't have changed many minds. The sheer destruction the flood of dynamis was causing, the reaction of the ancients, etc. Faced with the absolute destruction, people aren't going to calmly sit down and listen, they're going to grab onto the first plan and go with it, which is to summon Zodiark.



Only Hermes was barely capable of using dynamis. The other ancients were completely unaware of its existence, unable to sense it, unable to use it. We spent a good chunk of time hunting down Meteion because we were the only ones able. The ancients could not have fought Meteion because for most of them, it caused their magic to go out of control. A few ancients were capable of resisting fear, but most of them were susceptible to it. And I bet in a sustained fight, even Hades would succumb to fear.



Most men you fight are trying to kill you or your friends. Killing someone determined to kill you is not a "callous disregard for life" but self-defense. And killing animals that are destroying an ecosystem or hunting them for materials has been done since the dawn of time. You do realize other animals kill for food and sport? It's not some evil thing, it's a part of existence.

On your reasons why they wouldn’t stop:

1. There is nothing to suggest that Zodiark needs sacrifices to sustain himself. Neither the second or the third sacrifice have been done with the intent to sustain him, nor after the sundering, as has been mentioned above.

2. The “sacrificing everyone on the Source” bit is essentially the third sacrifice delayed by thousands of years. Giving away new life to bring back those who they have lost, it doesn’t have anything to do with sustaining Zodiark. Were they able to complete their plan and bring their people back, there would be little reason to continue.

I wouldn’t say people are eager to portray Hydaelyn as a villain, we’re pointing out her flaws which are much more grievous than what the game itself is trying to present.

[KariTheFox]

Not necessarily. Nuance is a thing, so although I do dislike that Emet is so eager to commit genocides without any care for if he kills people, I find it to be less despicable than Venat's similar actions. At least in Emet's case, he's the equivalent of a human killing monkeys. Yes, it's bad to go around killing monkeys but when compared to killing other full humans en masse, it's not as evil. Are both genocide? Yes, but one is clearly worse.

But they're not monkeys, they are in fact, people.

Classifying a certain kind of person as "less than human" and going on say it's fine if you kill them en masse to make room for your own superior race is in fact, the rhetoric that every genocidal regime uses.

So I'm gonna say the one that resembles genocide is worse than a mythopoetic act of anti-apotheosis with no real life analogue.

[PawPaw]

I don't get why people think it would stop at three sacrifices. That goes against two pieces of information, the first of which is that primals constantly need aether to sustain themselves. The second is that the plan was ultimately to rejoin all the shards and then sacrifice everyone to Zodiark to remake the world as it once was. People seem determined to paint Hydaelyn as some villain and Zodiark as some savior. In Zodiark's name, the Ascians destroyed six worlds of life, whereas Hydaelyn attempted to stop them..

Venat quite literally allowed Emet-Selch, Elidibus and Lahabrea to escape the Sundering so that they could do what she needed to have done in order to create her "little spark". She created MORE reflections than was necessary (we killed Meteion being 9/14 and surrounded by people who were 8/14 and higher, so that's exactly how sundered we needed to be IN ACTUALITY) simply because she knew that when she met us, 7 Rejoinings had happened, and thus, those extra worlds would be necessary as fodder. She didn't try to stop a thing. She NEEDED them to happen.

Also, please don't bring up "Primal Rules" after EW when they actually don't apply if your name is Venat. Zodiark has not needed a single soul in order to remain operative, even lacking his heart and will. There is no reason whatsoever for anyone to deduce that this is some sort of fluke and that, actually, he would have needed them constantly.

I distinctly recall them explaining that should Venat have told them, it wouldn't have changed many minds. The sheer destruction the flood of dynamis was causing, the reaction of the ancients, etc. Faced with the absolute destruction, people aren't going to calmly sit down and listen, they're going to grab onto the first plan and go with it, which is to summon Zodiark.

Who do you remember saying that? Was it just Venat herself? Because no one else in the game said it, especially not the Ancients who suffered for it. And I'm not asking "why didn't Venat let them know when everything was going to hell?", I am asking why she didn't bother telling them anything before the worst began happening. She knows that Dynamis is weak against aether, does she share what she knows? She has a GPS tracker on the enemy, does she tell them this? We know that the Echo exists, she explains how they use it to see the past and people's memories, we see them use it twice in Pandaemonium to do just that. What's stopping her from doing it? We can also see from Pandaemonium that our visit takes place AFTER the events in Elpis, and the world is just fine, so obviously there was time for her to have attempted anything to warn her people. She just didn't.

Only Hermes was barely capable of using dynamis. The other ancients were completely unaware of its existence, unable to sense it, unable to use it. We spent a good chunk of time hunting down Meteion because we were the only ones able. The ancients could not have fought Meteion because for most of them, it caused their magic to go out of control. A few ancients were capable of resisting fear, but most of them were susceptible to it. And I bet in a sustained fight, even Hades would succumb to fear.

Nope. Hermes was the only one to have experimented with it recently, but he was NOT the only person with knowledge of Dynamis. Hell, even Venat says she has heard of it before but isn't an expert. And again, it is logical that if a being like Meteion could be created then beings who could counter Meteion could also be created. The Ancients don't have to try to take her on themselves.

Most men you fight are trying to kill you or your friends. Killing someone determined to kill you is not a "callous disregard for life" but self-defense. And killing animals that are destroying an ecosystem or hunting them for materials has been done since the dawn of time. You do realize other animals kill for food and sport? It's not some evil thing, it's a part of existence.

So what's your point exactly? That it's OK for us to kill to defend ourselves (against, say, rabid fire dogs who destroy ecosystems) and hunt animals for materials (like, when you need to make a robe) but it's definitely a sign of callousness when the Ancients do it?

[Thenightvortex]

But they're not monkeys, they are in fact, people.

Classifying a certain kind of person as "less than human" and going on say it's fine if you kill them en masse to make room for your own superior race is in fact, the rhetoric that every genocidal regime uses.

So I'm gonna say the one that resembles genocide is worse than a mythopoetic act of anti-apotheosis with no real life analogue.

It’s not just anti-apotheosis, it’s a planetary omnicide. The sundering essentially killed all the ancients, erasing their culture, memories, even bodies if you go along with NIER Reincarnation crossover, that’s pretty horrible. I’m pretty sure you can make an argument that this is genocide. She deliberately killed and erased an entire race because she believed them incapable of achieving the standard she set up, so “inferior” in a way.