On Themis [6.4 SPOILER]

[Brinne]

I can only speak for myself, but I can say that I mostly enjoyed the game very casually until Shadowbringers engaged the "literary analysis" part of my brain and I wanted to apply that way of (to me, extremely enjoyable) appreciating the work of a story that truly impressed me at the time with its nuance. Then Endwalker happened, and it was what it was.

Obviously, people shouting hateful vitriol, making personal attacks, and spitefully derailing altogether sucks, and I've had my fair share of heated clashes with the more toxic groups of Endwalker-dislikers myself. But I mean, is the angle I'm interested in okay to exist alongside yours? Can I critique Endwalker on its writing choices and execution and enjoy discussion on that level with others also interested in that (and no, you have no obligation to have any interest in it yourself), even if this subforum may have been, as you said, mostly filled with worldbuilding types? Can that be seen as a legitimate way of approaching the story without it being suggested I'm probably just mad my favorite dolls lost the Great Toybox Wars?

[Anonymoose]

Done with one, but now several more behind, lol. @.@

(and I apologise for using the term here when the notion of "sides" in the first place is so reductive and ridiculous, but it's easy shorthand for "people basically satisfied with the story" and "those who took issue with it", so please bear with me)
<snip>
To begin with, I do have to echo the sentiment that your post does come across as rather condescending and disingenuous at first read, but if you truly have been by and large absent from the forums to the extent the backgrounds of these discussions are foreign to you, and possibly have not read through this what's been posted here (even as I struggle to fathom why), then it becomes a little more understandable
<snip>
And I do have to be brutally honest, in that you do seem to be making a strawman out of the "opposing side", as it were, because the people whose viewpoints you appear to be attempting to summarise...

For me, these three ideas, I think, capture part of where I'm coming from. I think there is more diversity within both the, to use your camps here, "people who were satisfied by the story" and "people who were not" camps than between them. I stand by, "if I speak of my experience of some debates made by some people who were dissatisfied of the story, it may not be reliable to assume I'm talking about you and your thoughts just because you were dissatisfied with the story camp". There's no attempt to summarize a side here, as I don't think the "sides" really exist here; I don't see a useful discretion that can be made on that scale. That's what baffles me, in turn. I feel like those ideas aren't really coming at each other head-on, but rather kind of diagonally. As those ideas loop past each other a few times, it feels like accusing me of framing something disingenuously by framing me disingenuously in turn - as that I'm referring to a much larger group than I am due to of a binary I don't believe in to serve as a strawman in a debate different from the one I'm trying to participating in. I think the group of people who feel I'm alluding to them is larger than the group I alluded to, and part of me is just stuck on the "Why?" but let's just set that aside.

("What are you alluding to, then?" - Again, I'm mainly confused by the frequency of seemingly equating "the characters are acting in a way that doesn't fit with my past interpretation" to mean "the characters are acting inconsistent with the story itself" whereby in my opinion that isn't a 1:1 thing - and I would argue that I'm entitled to that opinion and anyone who thinks I'm wrong for holding it is equally entitled to that opinion, that's the nature of debate.)

But you're right, if you loop those same things past each other a few times in the same way, and that perception starts to build, it does look like I'm being condescending/patronizing in a way I don't intend to. It still feels to me like it requires setting aside the "how did this specific person decide I was alluding to specifically them" factor in some of those cases, though.

no one, and I mean no one here was ever condoning the Ascians' actions or hoping they would be "vindicated"

If we can both agree to limit "here" to "this one thread" I think I can meet you there. The lore forum in totality, inclusive of all the posts of people who didn't like Endwalker, if my memory serves, that doesn't feel accurate. (Ditto the Garleans, lol.)

I enjoyed the Ascians because of how diametrically opposed they were to us.

Same. This is something I bring up a lot, but the role the Ascians thought they were playing is a role the protagonist has played in hundreds of tales. Time as they know it is broken, and they have to make things right again. What thought do those stories usually give to the people who were thriving there?

I resented their return and what felt a very laboured and unnecessary concession of Hydaelyn's actions and her methods not because I believed they were right <...> but because it felt at odds with the characters we had come to know, with very little to gain but to paint a garish smile on the Sundering itself and force something resembling a happy ending so that we don't have to feel so guilty for what was done to the Ancients.

This isn't one of the perspectives I was referring to, but we also don't have a lot of overlap on it and maybe that'll still be fun to talk about (you tell me). I see Emet-Selch (12,000-year-old wraith) as the Ascian I knew from the story, and that I saw 5 seconds of Emet-Selch (Hades), a guy I didn't know, as he died, so Hades (guy living 12,000 years ago) and Hades (reconstituted spirit in the sea) feel less like a "return" than an exploration of the who the guy we saw 5 seconds of was. From that perspective, the rest of it doesn't feel like that. It put a lot more weight on them comparing themselves as they were back then to the entities they will become, driving a deep wedge (again, for me) between those characters and the, as you called them, characters we had come to know. It doesn't feel like putting a garish smile on the sundering (to me), to acknowledge that their plan went awry, it further highlights (to me), that even the best possible outcome given unchangeable circumstances was still tragic. (Incidentally, I've seen "this wasn't the best possible outcome under the circumstances because it's undeniable that [ignores contrary came content, makes unsupported assumptions and calls them canon]" enough times that it stands out in my memory as an example of one of the patterns I was referring to. I've also seen it defended as the best possible outcome for [oops all assumptions], too. Like I said, I don't buy into "two camps", I just like trading perspectives, interpretations, and citations and that's not possible under those circumstances.)

I don't think the story did enough to adequately justify what Venat did or why her particular brand of wiping a race from existence is that much better than the Ascians' own, (which I do not agree with either, for the record) and they ultimately failed to convince me why one was necessitated and viewed as beneficial whereas the other was a senseless, vindictive crime.

This is getting a bit closer to the framing I'm used to seeing, and a perspective I can't get to, myself. From my perspective, when Venat triggered the sundering, from her perspective, 75% of her society was gone and the rest abandoned all course but sacrificing more and more to Zodiark, a corse that led only to oblivion, so the "good options" were exhausted. On the flip side, from the Ascians' perspective they were just setting things right. The Ascians saw the way things were as a temporary aberration. From the perspective of the sundered, once they had enough information to have one at all, the Ascians' world was already gone and their plan to restore it was flawed, so they made a poor case for the sundered just giving up and dying along with (what they considered to be) entire worlds. I don't understand how we get from there to a simple "necessary, beneficial act" vs. "senseless, vindictive crime" framing. I think it's a lot more complex than that, and it's my opinion that those complexities often go unexplored. There are a lot of interesting perspectives that can exist in that space.

I think the devs can feel that the playerbase have opposing viewpoints on this. That's why they created that Omega side quests where the watcher asked us who we agree with. There is no right or wrong answer and it's just your personal opinion.

Splicing this in here to agree with it and add the seemingly deliberate juxtaposition of Fordola and Yotsuyu. The debates on which one was "worse" were fun, but ultimately entirely based on personal moral epistemology and unresolvable.

And I really resent the remark that said empathy towards the Ancients is down to some pithy generalisation that their beauty and "perfection"...is innately more appealing than the "messy" Sundered

I can see how it could read as a "pthy generalisation", definitely. I apologize for that part. But also it was more an allusion to the people who deeply bought into the Ascian's framing that the origin of the sundered means that they're inherently worth less. If you're not one of the people who got really hung up on the romanticism of "being whole again" and thus fixated on the "superior" qualities of the ancients, I might not have been alluding to you or your perspective.

[Denishia]

A lot of the EW -and earlier Shadowbringers debate- I only briefly wade into and out of because it either doesn't match up to the areas of lore speculation that I find particularity fun, or when it does operate in the more meta realm of subjective analysis of how successful the story was emotionally and thematically, I know my personal biases towards characters, music, visual design, and especially tropes where I cannot divorce those from how I'm reacting and thus aside from explain those positions - and feeling oddly alone or isolated in some of them- I wait for the topic to pass. Because for example- Elpis even after completely all the side-quests I'm not feeling the weight of emotional attachment to any of these NPCs and found most of the section to be padded and relying on external fan appeal that would appeal to the majority that I wasn't a part of. Thinking of how and if I would change the writing to feel more successful for me while knowing that what feels wrong for me is working for the majority. So in the mental re-write I'm trying to balance the emotional effect of sending the player character into the zone initially alone to create a lonely desperateness (which then the Ultima Thule section revisited and pulled off more successfully) by making the entire 5th zone a straight time travel versus doing something more like Anamnesis Anyder where all the info dumps to convey the necessary backstory for the true antagonists are via Echo-flashbacks and coming across maybe a lingering uncorrupted Meteia, and thus keeping as least some party members with you - Ryne would be a good choice, but by doing so jettisoning a lot of the one-on-one interactions with Unsundered NPCs and thinking to myself am I just biased because the ones that felt most necessary was getting Hermes as to compare/contrast to Amon and Fandaniel and to have the emotional callback between Venat's stargazing one-on-one conversation and the Hydaelyn Trial... All a pointless tangent. And the knowledge that the part that did work for me is where that section stopped working for so many as the internet has made quite evident.

It's where my biggest complaints with Themis in this last tier are, because his inclusion in the modern Aetherial Sea sections felt more shoehorned in and thus writing justification particularly convoluted compared to how the presence of memory!Lahabrea and Erichtonios were explained. And that the version interacted with was this unsatisfactory combination of the post 6.0 Elidibus and the Themis of the past not in a way that made sense but because that was everything the player was bringing to the table in experience towards this character. And P11 for the fan service because the character was yet again plot relevant and any major plot relevant character in a MMO must get a fight eventually.

[Kozh]

I think that's the thing though. For a long time this sub section has been mostly filled with the non literary analysis types. Until EW happened and a bunch of people really did drive out a good chunk of people all because they were bitter and spiteful and wanted to tell those they had disagreed with to go suck it. Or to suck on certain bits of anatomy while shouting "Ha I knew it I knew that she was evil and to top it all off also a complete bitch! How do you feel now those who succkle at thine mommy godds dearest teets? That you now are (expletive) wrong?" And to justify using such vitriol and vileness as I said in my other response all the stuff having been flung at them pertaining to an unrelated topic on othere sites and social media. All to the point where even topics that didn't even mention certain characters or story beats would turn into the gazillionth time that poor horse was turned into glue.

Don't play victim when the one driven out is the critics. People wouldn't be so bitter and spiteful if you lot doesn't start is first by accusing us of not understanding the story/theme, or that we skip cutscene, or just plain villain lovers who can't do critical thinking, or implying that if you like the ascian/garlemald you're a n***. Funny of you saying that we turn unrelated topic into the same tired arguments when your side has been doing the same, especially a certain someone who can't let go of their obsession of shitting on emet and defending venat, even when the discussion isn't about neither of them.

You can see the ant from across the ocean, but you can't see the elephant in front of you.

[RyuDragnier]

Don't play victim when the one driven out is the critics. People wouldn't be so bitter and spiteful if you lot doesn't start is first by accusing us of not understanding the story/theme, or that we skip cutscene, or just plain villain lovers who can't do critical thinking, or implying that if you like the ascian/garlemald you're a n***. Funny of you saying that we turn unrelated topic into the same tired arguments when your side has been doing the same, especially a certain someone who can't let go of their obsession of shitting on emet and defending venat, even when the discussion isn't about neither of them.

You can see the ant from across the ocean, but you can't see the elephant in front of you.

...you get the irony that you're starting to do that right now, right?

[Lunaxia]

There are points where it feels...

I thought it was about to! Why is why I bowed out of the discussions when I reached a comfortable stopping point, but apparently I miscalculated and have until either the 8th or 9th (the particulars as to how the timing for that works still eludes me) and evidently means I could have played the patch... though I'm not particularly distraught over that, lol.

I think your take is... perhaps not wrong, but incredibly charitable, let's put it that way. You may be right, but a grown adult can distinguish between the two and surmise when it would be beneficial or futile to engage with a particular topic, and acknowledge when walking away is the better option instead of adamantly sticking to your guns and miring the discussion in pointless semantics and misrepresentations of what is actually being said. My patience with the latter has worn a little thin, I've got to say.

I think that's the thing though.

Yes, and I could counter this with several instances of players being subjected to disgusting levels of harassment outside of the forums merely for daring to be critical of Endwalker. I could say the levels of mockery and disdain that were shown from the outset towards anyone expressing a palpably negative view of the game were ridiculous and wholly unjustified, and that nothing warranted the nigh on constant attacks on everything from the players' intelligence and characters to their personal lives that continued unabated up until recently. I could counter that there have been trolls on both sides that have done nobody any favours and blatantly worked to fan the flames to the detriment of everyone, not just those who share your point of view, and I could say that even now, despite the best efforts of several posters who have done nothing but express themselves politely and articulately in even in the most obnoxious and trying of circumstances, holding a particular set of views still sets you up to be exposed to a very strange and potent sense of snobbery for choosing to engage critically with the game in a way others do not.

At some point you have to let go of the metaphorical boogeyman and stop using it as an excuse to further victimise yourself and undermine arguments that you disagree with and meaningfully engage with the discussion at hand, or not bother with it all.

Done with one, but now several more behind, lol. @.@

Will respond to this in a little bit when I've recovered some energy, I dozed off typing the rest, lol.

[Brinne]

I think your take is... perhaps not wrong, but incredibly charitable, let's put it that way. You may be right, but a grown adult can distinguish between the two and surmise when it would be beneficial or futile to engage with a particular topic, and acknowledge when walking away is the better option instead of adamantly sticking to your guns and miring the discussion in pointless semantics and misrepresentations of what is actually being said. My patience with the latter has worn a little thin, I've got to say.

Y-you keep calling my takes "charitable"! What can I do to convince you I'm not so soft and naive?

Obviously I am kidding. I totally understand where you're coming from, because being mired in so much bad faith (there is often going to be kneejerk defensiveness and hostility if you express criticism, however legitimate, of a piece of media someone likes in a dedicated way, unfortunately, and whatever psychology is behind that is a whole other can of worms in and of itself) and, at times, people bafflingly just wholesale seeming to make things up, whether about the text itself or about what other people are claiming, is exhausting. I dunno, though, in my experience, it doesn't even occur to a lot of people to distinguish the two modes of thinking about a story, perhaps even particularly when it comes to "nerd media," where there are so many cases where storytelling is treated more like solving a puzzle where there's a right answer and a wrong answer, and whatever is discerned to be "intended" is the end of the discussion.

Something I do want to add while I'm thinking about it as an addendum to my other thoughts, though, is that a "writing analysis" lens does not have to be critical or negative by default. See: my appreciation of my beautiful wife, Athena. There's tons of aspects of Pandaemonium I could express deep appreciation for how they went about things, let alone Shadowbringers itself setting my brain alight way back when. I think part of the language that easily gets misunderstood is also... how to put it, the often unspoken understanding in those types of discussions that a story is going to inherently be a part of a broader "conversation," and what can be appreciated or not appreciated about it is going to take place in context of the "conversation" surrounding the tropes, devices, and themes it employs, which is where a lot of the gushing about Athena, for example, comes from so far as the integrity and unapologetic nature of her writing vis a vis an unusual portrayal of a maternal figure in this kind of media. The appreciation for the Ancients and Amaurot--well, speaking for myself--also has roots in how it orients itself in a certain type of "conversation" about how plot devices of their sort are typically portrayed, and beyond just tropes, to me, the sorts of figures in stories that usually don't get their perspectives and humanity privileged or valued.

Obviously, I am still extremely critical of lots of Endwalker’s storytelling and writing, but I guess I wanted to make clear my position was not “my form of enjoyable discussion is just hating on and criticizing the game’s writing”.

[Kozh]

...you get the irony that you're starting to do that right now, right?

But do you get that I was merely calling out the hypocrisy? I know it's hard since you're not the "critical analysis" type, but do better Ryu.

[Cleretic]

Yes, and I could counter this with several instances of players being subjected to disgusting levels of harassment outside of the forums merely for daring to be critical of Endwalker. I could say the levels of mockery and disdain that were shown from the outset towards anyone expressing a palpably negative view of the game were ridiculous and wholly unjustified, and that nothing warranted the nigh on constant attacks on everything from the players' intelligence and characters to their personal lives that continued unabated up until recently. I could counter that there have been trolls on both sides that have done nobody any favours and blatantly worked to fan the flames to the detriment of everyone, not just those who share your point of view, and I could say that even now, despite the best efforts of several posters who have done nothing but express themselves politely and articulately in even in the most obnoxious and trying of circumstances, holding a particular set of views still sets you up to be exposed to a very strange and potent sense of snobbery for choosing to engage critically with the game in a way others do not.

At some point you have to let go of the metaphorical boogeyman and stop using it as an excuse to further victimise yourself and undermine arguments that you disagree with and meaningfully engage with the discussion at hand, or not bother with it all.

SannaR was literally describing the exact same thing as you from an opposing side, and I can say personally that I've been harassed on multiple platforms (part of which you're no doubt aware) for the crime of 'not particularly trusting Emet-Selch or agreeing with Team Zodiark'.

This argument gets virulently ugly because of people deciding their views on this are moral stances that they need to attack people for disagreeing with, and that's not okay. There's a lot of victims to this; don't blame them for voicing that.

[Lunaxia]

Y-you keep calling my takes "charitable"! What can I do to convince you I'm not so soft and naive?

I'm sorry! Perhaps "gracious" might more apt, and closer to what I'm trying to say. It's not a bad thing! It's a very healthy mindset to have. It enables you to offer a fresh understanding on a situation that others may miss or be unable to express, and sometimes even create a possible middle ground to meet on in the centre of what otherwise can feel like a considerably yawning chasm. It's an admirable quality, especially when I find myself struggling to take anything seriously after having to hear how Amaurot is a commentary on fascist states, or how the Convocation supposedly resembles an oligarchy, and I'm incapable of much more than [looks at an invisible camera like I'm on The Office.]

And likewise, there is actually a lot about FFXIV overall and yes, even parts of EW that I could enthuse about endlessly if invited (I did play the game this long for a reason, after all), and it's unfortunate how it gets lost in the mix of the endless controversial debates. Personally, my enthusiasm - as well as my criticism - revolves primarily around the game's approach to storytelling and its ability to establish tension, create atmosphere, induce (the appropriate) emotion in the player and organically develop the characters and the story in a subtle but skilful way (have I mentioned lately how much I loved In From the Cold?) which sometimes it does do so very well and other times, uh... well.) And in less stringent circles less focused on an us vs them narrative regarding the overall view of the story, perhaps I could express them, but there's not really much room here to do that.

SannaR was literally describing...

But it's so inanely repetitive by now it's become by and large redundant, and winds up used as little more than a shield to justify bad faith takes and encourage a hive-mind approach to interpreting the story rather than considering it from a personal and more nuanced perspective. Can we not just report these people and let it go once and for all?

Edit: You know, it's worth mentioning I have seen many instances of posters calling out their own and acknowledging the mistreatment of other users from the critical side, but rarely if ever have I seen even one poster acknowledge the hostility or attacks inflicted in the name of supposedly defending the story - it always has to circle back to making themselves the victim, somehow.