What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[Saraide]

The unsundered werent free of suffering, they just swept it under the rug. That's why it's a fake utopia like pretty every other utopia in fiction. This is a recurring theme in fiction: look under the rug of any utopia and you will see its rotten core, the ancient's society is no different. The thing that this game celebrates isnt suffering, it's overcoming it. A real utopia is unachieveable but that doesnt mean we shouldnt strive to improve the lives of ourselves and others. Suffering doesnt stop existing just because we refuse to acknowledge it, this is why the ancients were doomed to fail and why hydaelyn took away their flawed perfection.

[Brinne]

Always fun to see us circle back to how the Ancients were biologically unfit.

It comes back down to the disconnect. If Venat cast down a bunch of mere thematic symbols, not truly people but just symbolic representations of a part of the human psyche, that she is merely defeating the stand-in for the "temptation for weakness" within the Human Spirit as a whole, then there's no big deal, just coast on the vibes and the theme. However, if you take the perspective that Venat did what she did to people - keeping in mind that the previous expansion's emotional impact depending on the fact that you understand her victims were people, and asking you to empathize with them as such - everything instantly flips and becomes an absolute horror show.

And frankly, even if you try to point out that Endwalker is an expression of Buddhist ideals, the medium it goes about doing it entails the eradication of an entire race of people. It involves the conscious decision of someone who is celebrated as a hero to force people into a world where war, sickness, torture, and death exist where none did before. It portrays suffering as so necessary that it must be actively inflicted upon others if someone decides on some unspecified criteria that they're not experiencing enough. Criticizing how Endwalker conveys themes that may overlap with Buddhism is not the same thing as criticizing Buddhism.

Endwalker isn't subtle about what it's trying to say. At all. Trust me, I get it, and it's even a message I've basically enjoyed and appreciated when explored in other stories and other mediums. Those other stories usually don't underline the theme with "and that is why billions of people had to die in agony to pave the way for You, The One True Sufferer Who Suffers In The Correct Way."

The unsundered werent free of suffering, they just swept it under the rug.

What does this even mean...?

That's why it's a fake utopia like pretty every other utopia in fiction.

"I automatically know what this story is doing with a concept because I've seen how completely different stories do it" is kind of a weird way to engage with a text.

The thing that this game celebrates isnt suffering, it's overcoming it.

w-what does this even mean. what does it even meannnnnn

In seriousness, this is the problem when we, Endwalker-style, engage in these ideas via vague platitudes, generalized discussions of "suffering." What kind of suffering? Illustrate exactly what kind of suffering, what scenarios that teach this suffering, that you're (general you) suggesting is absolutely necessary for one to have a fulfilling life? What does it look like, actualized and concrete? Is it the kids freezing to death in the snow? Is it the wars? Is it the disease? Going to bed hungry? Stubbing your toe? What specifically is the adjustment to the environment that Venat inflicted that was so necessary that lacking it sufficed as reason to destroy an entire world and everything living on it?

[Saraide]

What does this even mean...?

"I automatically know what this story is doing with a concept because I've seen how completely different stories do it" is kind of a weird way to engage with a text.

w-what does this even mean. what does it even meannnnnn

Did you not notice how hermes and eric were suffering? People like them existed back then but their suffering was ignored. No one tried to understand them.

To me it sounds like you argue under the idea that a perfect utopia is infact possible. I disagree and (caution: very judgemental statement following) and think you need to stop huffing lethal amounts of copium. The trope of the seemingly perfect but actually rotten utopia is a common one because fiction is generally written by humans. Many people in our world have declared themselves or their way of live perfect. Fiction authors want to convince you how foolish that is. However, while perfection is unattainable, improvement is attainable.

What it means is that instead of settling for nothing less than perfection (and growing more and more desperate in the search of it) you should strive for improvement. That striving is what is being celebrated in the game. This cannot make sense if you cling to the idea that a perfect utopia can exist (or worse if you think it already exists).


On the topic of 'was venat justified?':
I think we need to ask a different question first: Was she looking for justification? What kind of justification?
In the cutscene after her trial I think she said something like "there was no kindness in the destruction I wrought". I dont think she was looking for moral justification, ever. It was always my interpretation that she was acting out of desperation and this is supported imo by the completely doomed backup plan of using the moon as an escape vessel. Faced with the choice of letting the ancients work themselves to their unavoidable doom or shattering the world and having the remnants be inhabitated by living feeling beings that have a better chance of defeating the catastrophe unleashed on the universe, she made her choice.

I found the omega beyond the rift quest very interesting in that regard. It poses not only the question of 'do you think what she did was justified?' but also includes hermes into that. He was desperately looking for justification for his actions. A search that not only doomed the world on accident but a doom he, given knowledge of the consequences of his action, also embraced in his authority as judge over the rights to existence of living beings on etherys.

[Brinne]

Did you not notice how hermes and eric were suffering? People like them existed back then but their suffering was ignored. No one tried to understand them.

These two examples are kind of insane, to be blunt. Well, okay, let me amend: the example of Hermes is kind of insane, the example of Erich is completely insane.

Hermes is someone who is noted, when you talk to the NPCs around Elpis, to be pretty distant and keep people at arms' length; none of his subordinates know much about him personally, although they respect him. Hermes's short story in Tales from the Dawn goes further into how people did want to help him and tried to reassure him, but Hermes had made his mind up about how they were just patronizing him and that the words and sentiments they offered weren't good enough. You can have a discussion about how relatable Hermes's frustration about what he felt were others' platitudes may or may not be to you, but to say they simply ignored his suffering is weird. It wasn't ignored when Hermes chose to share it; people just didn't quite immediately get where he was coming from, which isn't a crime or a sign of any moral deficiency.

And frankly, you have a direct, onscreen example playing out right in front of your eyes about an Ancient being sympathetic to and open to hearing out Hermes's thoughts, even if he doesn't immediately, intuitively understand where he's coming from: Emet-Selch, who keeps breaking protocol or helping Hermes out personally when he evidences distress in spite of himself, and whose thoughts continue to linger on Hermes's distress after Hermes shouts him down, and who felt so badly for his pain he offered him a top level government position to extract him from it. Emet's response to Hermes wasn't perfect by any means, but he was trying his best with the best of intentions, and Hermes was not playing ball because the attempts to understand and help weren't exactly the kind that he was looking for - since he was looking for agreement and unconditional validation on his unusual, for their society, response to and extreme fears about death.

You'd be better off making the argument that Hermes felt isolated because he was suffering badly in a world where not many people suffer badly, necessitating the hard work of two-way connection and actually explaining himself, than suggesting that people just ignored his problems or were callous to him.

Erichtonios, on the other hand, just kind of flat out blows my mind that you'd hold him up as an example of someone whose suffering was "ignored" when we had a whole arc in Pandaemonium about Lahabrea's stress and internal conflict about what he put Erich through, and an entire scene therewithin where he and Agdistis discuss, onscreen, before our eyes, the stress that Lahabrea's decision to protect him is going to put Erich through and how it still isn't right - to the point that Agdistis's dying action is trying to address the problem and forcing Lahabrea to do the same. The actual opposite of "sweeping it under the rug."

You have Erich only speaking in the most glowing terms about his coworkers - Hesperos, before his transformation, the aforementioned Agdistis, everyone else who Erich is so passionate about saving. Everyone seems to have treated him well and he doesn't harbor any ill feelings towards them at all. Erich specifically talks about how kind they are and how much they care about the people working under them.

And then there's Themis, Elidibus himself, who is also nothing but utterly sympathetic to Erich's plight, consistently takes his side both emotionally and in passionately defending him against anyone who might slight him. Themis who never once speaks down to him, and who Erich counts as one of the dear friends whose support has let him overcome Athena's brainwashing. Themis, who recognizes that fact that, and expresses that he's glad for, that Lahabrea and Erich look like they're on the road to reconciliation (even if it will take time, and won't be easy) and a better future for themselves - incredibly, something apparently actually possible for Ancients, overcoming their problems and their suffering, when we start defining them into actual characters and situations instead of thematic vagaries and symbols.

And frankly, Erich is an Ancient himself. He's not portrayed as exceptional, either. Erich's introduction is panicking and being frantic to save his coworkers to the point that you fight him. At no point does Themis make an aside that, boy, it sure is weird and gross in their society that Erich feels so much for the people around him - Themis immediately takes a shine to him because of it, and then even takes his side against Lahabrea!

This speaks back to, again, how while it's easy to talk in sweeping platitudes or paint with a broad brush, it gets squeamish fast when the vague generalities are narrowed down into actual specifics, actual pictures. The Ancients were beyond hope, doomed people who had to die, culturally poisoned and spoiled and a dead-end. Erichtonious is a dead end, an Ancient so far gone culturally he needs to be put down? Agdistis was a dead end? Themis was a dead end? These people just simply couldn't be saved, weren't and aren't worth trying to save from what awaits them? That starts becoming a very staggering claim.

It's once again a case of what Endwalker actually wrote completely undermining what Endwalker then steps back and tries to say about what it wrote. Honestly, the sheer amount of "don't give a fig" Pandaemonium has so far about Endwalker's themes and how it tried to shoehorn the Ancients to fit into it in favor of just showing them to be people, struggling and suffering in their own ways, but doing their best to do the right thing, is kind of hilarious.

To me it sounds like you argue under the idea that a perfect utopia is infact possible. I disagree and (caution: very judgemental statement following) and think you need to stop huffing lethal amounts of copium.

Not expecting you to have looked through my post history or read the tedious walls of text within, but suffice it to say: nope! Incorrect!

What it means is that instead of settling for nothing less than perfection (and growing more and more desperate in the search of it) you should strive for improvement. That striving is what is being celebrated in the game. This cannot make sense if you cling to the idea that a perfect utopia can exist (or worse if you think it already exists).

But enough about how the Ancients were good people!