(MAJOR SPOILERS) Just beat Endwalker MSQ...

[Travel]

Well, I come back, and... I feel I've made some people upset. My apologizes; I looked over my original post and realized I didn't explain a few points as well as I thought I did; that's what happens when you get rushed to type something out. Let me see if I can explain my thoughts a bit better now; grab a drink or two, this might take a bit.

Ah yes just the thing to come and do to people grieving, to telling them that they are wrong to grieve for the loved ones what a hateful thing to do. Hey everyone you loved is dead, well just get over it and move on. it's a hateful spiteful mindset.
Greif breaks people and I find the idea that if people don't react in an someone imposed way then they don't deserve to exterminated to be one of the most evil acts I've seen in Final Fantasy.

I'm not saying that it's really a "good" thing to do; I'm just pointing out that, sometimes, you really do just need to get up and try and deal with the problem and keep going. We kinda did it ourselves back in Heavensward, with Emmanellian; it's not a nice thing to do, but in a high-stress situation - especially in an apocalypse scenario - getting someone out of that mindset is important.

The group she talked with wasn’t summoning Zodiark, that scene is metaphorical and represents different points of the timeline. By that time Zodiark was already there and they are present worshipers.

You say that they didn’t fix the problem and didn’t look to the future, but how do you envision it? They tried to restore their home and rebuild just like the sundered did after the last calamity, why is it wrong? It was hard for them to deal with grief(figures considering they lost 75% of their population), but they did the best they could considering they did not know of the source of the Final Days(concealed by Venat btw)

Basically, what I’m asking is what in your opinion they should’ve done which would ‘earn them the right’ to not be sundered?

Let me see if I can explain this for you and the guys above; put simply, the Ancients didn't deserve what happened to them, it was just a very shitty situation all around. It's not that the Ancients were in the wrong for wanting to return to the way everything was - what they wanted was completely, perfectly understandable, and hell, if I were in Emet's shoes, I'd have done the exact same thing. The issue here, is Dynamis; the Ancient's were too broken by grief to be able to properly deal with it, wanting to go back to their lives that they had before, but they couldn't because the Endsinger was still active - that, and remember, the Ancients couldn't deal with Dynamis directly because they had too much Aether. The only one with any knowledge on the subject was Hermes, and even then, he wasn't exactly the best at understanding it; his interactions with Meteion are a good example. I'll let TvTropes explain this one:

"Meteion's breakdown is the ultimate indictment of Amaurotine society - as a familiar, she was essentially an organic robot to them, with even Hermes, her creator, ultimately regarding her as a tool for his plan to explore the universe, and because of that impatiently sent her sisters out without submitting his plan to the Convocation for peer review. To him, he was just getting his new toy up and running without Emet-Selch interfering, when in reality she had the emotional maturity of a newborn and simply seeing her as a person who needed to be emotionally prepared for it, which Emet-Selch immediately recognized. Cut to her discovering the truth, and rather than admit he did something awful to her, Hermes uncritically accepts it to confirm his own growing biases and disaffection from society, sabotaging any attempt to subdue her. And Venat remembers it all - no wonder she decided to begin the Sundering when she realized that the Amaurortine are planning to sacrifice a full three-quarters of their population just to bring it back to status quo, by that point it was no great loss in her eyes."

The Ancients aren't in the wrong, they just couldn't deal with the issue causing everything, and that's what led to Venat sundering everything.

As for Venat; not saying she was in the right, either, and frankly her entire plan was very, very lucky it went the way it did. Honestly, from what I've gathered, it's rather likely that she just simply was going on what the Warrior of Light told her; basically, the WoL ended up causing what is known as a time loop, and Venat was ensuring the timeline would go the same way as it did in-game, which was a timeline that she knew would give humanity a fighting chance against the Dynamis issue - certainly not a good plan, but it was the only one that she knew that could work. That, and it's also likely that simple desperation could have played a part; it's very likely that she was just going on the only real plan she could think of at the time in such a scenario. I don't think it was active malicious intent, I think it was more desperation than anything else.

That, and there's the issue with Zodiark, the primal; while certainly well-intentioned, and the Ancients were completely in the right for wanting their world back, there's one key issue. Namely, primals require sacrifices, and Zodiark is technically a hivemind of the sacrificed; while initially made up of willing sacrifices, what would happen when people that were unwilling were sacrificed?

I'm not disagreeing with you, mind; Venat certainly could have handled the situation better. Thing is; I don't entirely think we're supposed to really think she's completely right - the way she was set up sort of indicates that she was supposed to be seen as this anti-hero more than anything else. Remember, the story of Endwalker was supposed to take place over the course of two entire expansions, originally, with it ending in 7.0; it was cut down because the devs felt that they were dragging the story out. It's very plain to see that a LOT of story content was cut, and I imagine we would have gotten a much better explanation of everything had the story been its proper length.

TL;DR: The Ancients didn't deserve what happen to them, it was just a horrific situation, Venat certainly could have been handled better, remember that the plot got trimmed a TON.

I enjoyed the EW story well enough, but even I can recognize its pretty major flaws. I will also be honest in saying that you mostly lost me and I resorted to skimming your posts after you said it was better than HW. Calling Shadowbringers overrated didn't help your case either. In my opinion, EW was okay, but it did not quite live up to the hype. Shadowbringers went above and beyond in that regard, and we got a story I don't think most people expected to be as good as it was.

Yeah, sorry about that; I didn't explain myself really well there. Let me try to explain below.

I gave them the benefit of the doubt and read everything, but not gonna lie, saying it was better than Heavensward made it tempting to stop and leave the topic. However some of their negatives I do agree with, specially on the Loporrits and pacing.

Right, first off, let me bring up something; this was whole post was basically my opinion on the subject. I'm not saying "you're wrong, I'm right" - I really do apologize if that's how it came out - it's just that I found the theme of holding onto hope in Endwalker more enjoyable for me than Heavensward's focus on revenge and forgiveness. Believe it or not, I actually consider Heavenward's story to be more or less flawless compared to the others - it really does go at just the right pace for everything, and I genuinely can't recall a negative thought concerning the story and such. It's just that the theme of Endwalker hit harder for me; you follow? It's not that I didn't enjoy Heavensward, far from it, I just found a story about hope/despair more moving than a story about revenge/forgiveness. Different strokes for different folks, is all.

As for my comments about Shadowbringers; well, I have a few things to say. To put it nicely, one reason why I couldn't enjoy Shadowbringers as much as the others was because I had gotten spoiled on literally almost every plot detail in the story before I ever even jumped into the expansion. There was nothing exciting, because I saw everything coming; it's a damn good story, make no mistake, but I really couldn't enjoy it because all of the twists I knew were coming.

The other reason, as well as the reason I call it "overhyped", is that, well, just about everyone I've seen talking about it constantly praises it while ignoring some of the flaws that it has. Again, it's a fantastic expansion, and I really do wish that I could have ran it blind, but saying that the story is completely flawless is... a bit much; I found some issues with pacing, namely, along with other issues such as Ran'jiit, for instance. They're minor issues, yes, but when the story is being constantly praised as absolutely flawless despite this, it makes even minor flaws stand out so much more.

Again, it's a good story, and if I could run it blind/with more tempered expectations, I certainly would. It's still my third favorite expansion, with HW and EW being neck-and-neck ahead, so it's not like I hate it.

TL;DR: For Heavensward and Endwalker, I went in mostly blind on both and had no real expectations, and both blew me away as a result. Meanwhile, I went into Shadowbringers both spoiled on almost everything and with VERY high expectations, and was left wanting as a result.

Oh no. Hide, you poor thing. You've just activated the Emet fanclub. Their seething, raging, venomous loathing of fictional character Venat is a sight to behold. Prepare for a small but insistent flood that she's the most spiteful, evil, wicked, hateful, deceitful, vicious witch the canon of fiction has ever produced, and the Ancient utopia "deserved" to keep going forever. No, explaining story themes isn't a deterrent.

Glad you enjoyed the story.

Thanks for the kind words; it's funny, I'm an Emet fan myself, but seeing everyone go after me is... a bit saddening. Are people not allowed to have differences in opinion anymore? It's entirely possible to like one character without hating another, after all.