Quote Originally Posted by Brinne View Post
And not universally, but I suspect several depressed people are inclined to see the crafted existence of a failure state as "I would obviously be someone vulnerable to that failure state" and relate to its illustrations moreso than the heroes. People who bought into Shadowbringers's "humanize and validate everyone" approach would be thrown by "wait, since when is it okay to write off entire swaths of people as inherently unworthy to live, or by unideal emotional responses be 'shown' to be unworthy? That's really messed up?" And some weird people (hello) are generally brainbroken and tend to be inherently suspicious of the heroic fantasy tendency (and extremely ugly historical tendency) to otherize and invalidate people who don't belong in the POV characters' in-groups.

For Endwalker, well, it's a video game! They were never alive. They're just symbolic generalities. They're a vehicle to deliver that heartwarming, affirmative message to YOU! Don't worry about it! Their failure state could never apply to YOU! Even the people who failed to answer YES to the question are now rallying behind YOU and are happy that even if they couldn't, YOU are the one who gets the affirmation! And YOU are so great in being capable of answering YES to the question that you can even inspire and uplifts the others who couldn't do it for themselves! Happy ending for everyone.
Thank you for writing this!

Yes! That was my experience of it. Was so hyped to play EW, looked forward to it for ages since FFXIV had become where I went to try to mend my brain, a place to relax, be social, think and be able to get away from thinking when needed, and be a bit happier. Endwalker hit me HARD and I spiralled badly back into a depression I was already struggling to get out of.

The question "Is life worth it?" being answered with "if you're the right type of person, with only acceptable emotions (absolutely NO sadness or fear!), in with the right crowd, in the right time and place. If not, then no, you're just not strong enough or what we consider worthy". Damn!

Not the message they wanted to send, but that's how it was received by me during play through. Add to it the gaslighting ("they deserved it", "there was no other way", "suffering is beautiful", "it hurt mommy more. Think of her pain!" etc.) and I spent literally months trying to crawl back out from under the dark storm cloud in my head.

I know that's not what the writers intended, EW was meant to be uplifting (others seemed to feel it was?), but for me, it was the direct opposite.