A game for 4 year olds

[Thenightvortex]

Speaking for myself, I can say that if Endwalker went the direction of Aveyond's rewrite fanfiction (although I'm not sure 'fan' is the right term in this context), I probably wouldn't have even finished it. That story was so full of... at best highly questionable viewpoints and ideas, at worst diverging into being hateful and concerning. I do not want to experience that sort of story, which is why a list of my favorite stories likely has very little overlap with theirs. And a big part of why I play FFXIV is that its story has never been anywhere near that hateful on any level; if Endwalker suddenly diverged into the likes of Aveyond's rewrite, it would've felt like a betrayal of all that had come before.

Not everyone hateplays a game; generally speaking, that's not fun for most people. Even less people continue hateplaying and wallowing in being that negative around the game's community for nearly an entire year afterwards. most people move on and find other things to do with their life!



If I'm allowed a moment to armchair speculate: I actually think that might be because you're more motivated by the character stories of the game rather than the grander and more societal ones. I love Endwalker's ending, but a lot of Ultima Thule was more about grappling with ideas than people, which doesn't always land for people. But for those who are more motivated by more direct character journeys and interactions, Zenos is the finale rather than the coda; one final culmination of a character journey before the credits roll. (Being essentially a representative of previous expansions as The Last Son Of Galvus probably helps with that too.)

What kind of viewpoints and ideas are you talking about? Anything worse that the narrative of Endwalker supporting genocide? I read the rewrite and I didn’t find anything nearly as egregious.

[RukoBoshi]

If I were to ask one of the Clinical Psychologists I work with to define "normal human being" I'm very confident they'd laugh at the absurdity of it. Frankly, as I said in my previous post, you're judging everyone by your standards, and that isn't a healthy mindset.

Whether you like it or not, the basic premise - wallowing in despair being self-defeating - is a message that does resonate with some and it isn't for you to tell anyone that they're wrong/that it isn't 'normal' to feel that way.

Yeah that's a pretty gross implication, and it baffles me someone can write that.
Dismissing the loss and suffering of another because of their taste in storytelling ? Because a story about loss resonate with them ?

Especially with the recents world events, i was fortunate enough to not lose anyone during covid, but my friend who lost his grandfather during that time, and then played Endwalker he felt a big connection to the story.
Especially the ending with Meteion's message.

And this is a sentiment that i've seen many times, not only with Endwalker, but other games about accepting loss, like Hellblade Senua Sacrifice.

[Cleretic]

What kind of viewpoints and ideas are you talking about? Anything worse that the narrative of Endwalker supporting genocide? I read the rewrite and I didn’t find anything nearly as egregious.

If you immediately pitch Endwalker as having a message of 'supporting genocide', we're not going to have a productive and informative discussion here, and I have better things to do with my time than try.

[KariTheFox]

What kind of viewpoints and ideas are you talking about? Anything worse that the narrative of Endwalker supporting genocide? I read the rewrite and I didn’t find anything nearly as egregious.

If I remember correctly, probably the part where the rightful heir of Garlean Throne sets up a soapbox, pulls out a megaphone and talks about how democracy is bad actually, and some people would actually be better off as vassal states of the Garlean Empire because they're just too violent and unruly to govern themselves. So, y'know, rhetoric that resembles actually real life justifications for genocide.

More egregious than the mythological genocide of a race of godlike supermen with no real life analogue through a process anti-apotheosis as a story to explain why there is suffering in the world, I'd say.

[RukoBoshi]

What kind of viewpoints and ideas are you talking about? Anything worse that the narrative of Endwalker supporting genocide? I read the rewrite and I didn’t find anything nearly as egregious.

For a game intended for 4 years old, we circle back to genocide discussion pretty often.

[jameseoakes]

If you immediately pitch Endwalker as having a message of 'supporting genocide', we're not going to have a productive and informative discussion here, and I have better things to do with my time than try.

But that is the plot of Endwalker, the Venat outright betrays and exterminates her own people with one of the ingame reasons being outright eugenics or for not dealing with grief the way that Venat decides they should.

[Thenightvortex]

If I remember correctly, probably the part where the rightful heir of Garlean Throne sets up a soapbox, pulls out a megaphone and talks about how democracy is bad actually, and some people would actually be better off as vassal states of the Garlean Empire because they're just too violent and unruly to govern themselves. So, y'know, rhetoric that resembles actually real life justifications for genocide.

Democracy isn’t beyond criticism and not all fictional states have to be made democratic. Keeping Empire as is allows to have more variety in the story and is imo a good choice instead of completely wrecking it or making another bland democratic state by Alphinaud’s hand.

More egregious than the mythological genocide of a race of godlike supermen with no real life analogue through a process anti-apotheosis as a story to explain why there is suffering in the world, I'd say.

Nah miss me with the mythological stuff. The only thing that makes it fictionalized is the fact that their souls lived on to reincarnate, the process itself is a full on extermination. If a nuke was falling down on the ground before you, I don’t think your first reaction would be to gasp and say “wow, what a mythopoetic act of apotheosis this is”.

For a game intended for 4 years old, we circle back to genocide discussion pretty often.

The more I think about it, the more I have the impression that Endwalker is a kids book written by a psychopath.

[Kozh]

More egregious than the mythological genocide of a race of godlike supermen with no real life analogue through a process anti-apotheosis as a story to explain why there is suffering in the world, I'd say.

Idk man, I'm pretty sure harming a group of people because of your ideology (no matter if you think it's for the victim's own good) is pretty close to real life situation. I think we call it terrorism.

You might see sundering as amputating diseased limb, but I disagree with that view.

[KageTokage]

I'm not going to engage deeply with that argument again because it's already been beaten to death in several other topics, but I still find myself thoroughly puzzled by why they couldn't have given Venat a more...concrete reason for her decision, as opposed to being based strictly on possibilities and the knowledge that mankind is still alive in the future for the time being.

It makes no sense to attach numerous shades of gray to a course of action, then double down on defending it as having been the right and best course. At that point you're better off just taking the black and white approach to avoid creating a weird tonal dissonance.

That whole point has aged even more poorly for me now that we've gotten more context behind the Nibirun/people of the Plenty to know they were decidedly dissimilar from the Ancients in how they chose to pursue "perfection". They were obsessed with efficiency and perfecting themselves as a people, not trying to build a perfect world. The visual storytelling in the Dead Ends suggests even their very star came second to that ambition, so by the time their goal was fulfilled they had basically eliminated every reason they might've had left for living.

[Cleretic]

Nah miss me with the mythological stuff. The only thing that makes it fictionalized is the fact that their souls lived on to reincarnate, the process itself is a full on extermination. If a nuke was falling down on the ground before you, I don’t think your first reaction would be to gasp and say “wow, what a mythopoetic act of apotheosis this is”.

No, the thing that makes it fictionalized is that it's a complete bag of fantastical nonsense that doesn't resemble any act that's ever happened in human history.

I've stopped comparing acts by Hydaelyn or the Ascians as genocide, because to do so would be to take away from the serious nature of genocide as a concept; it does not deserve to be thrown around to refer to fantastical fictional concepts like the Sundering, a worldwide flood, or even a Rejoining; not to mention, pinning that badge on those story beats is very clearly against the spirit of what the game is trying to do with all of those story beats. The term 'genocide' should reasonably only be brought up when referring to things that actually resemble real-world acts that have been called such, of which FFXIV is not free of, so we should probably save that term for when it's more apropos.


Incidentally, have you been doing the quests that you started this thread to talk about? Because I have, and I find it more interesting than this derail, so let's get back to it.



Gonna spoiler-tag this out of courtesy for the people who haven't yet done it, which I suspect the most talkative people here might not have!

'Robots learn they have feelings' is not exactly a new concept even in this game, but I'm a sucker for it. And I like that a not insignificant part of the quest is about Jammingway having to meet N-7000 where it's at, rather than entirely N-7000 being the one doing the growing.

Interesting that the Nibirun still haven't been resolved; the Bloodsworn capstone is rarely used for story development, so maybe they're beeing held back for another quest. Perhaps the allied tribe quest?