Can 7.0 focus on a storyline without the philosophizing

[LilimoLimomo]

That's where the EW fails. It tells you that this is the philosophy, and it makes sure you know it. It feels like authors are just saying "Look how cool that is!", "Do you see, do you understand the power of friendship?"...At the same time, that philosophy is controversial. Come on, power of friendship, really? It's really hard to relate to such a weird concept, which works only in anime. It never happened to me that when I was with friends, I heard sound of LB bar filling.

Hmmm, I guess we might have different interpretations of the philosophy being discussed by the narrative? I experienced Endwalker as an exploration of both whether and why life is worth living in spite of its many hardships, which at least to me is a complex and challenging question. My personal interpretation is that Endwalker didn't provide an explicit answer to that question, nor did it intend to; rather, it presented a lot of ideas and arguments that act as catalysts to propel individuals engaging with this question towards whatever their personal conclusion is, while also showcasing a variety of different conclusions to this question from the characters in its stories. Though while Endwalker doesn't explicitly answer why life is worth living, it does have a hopeful and positive outlook that clearly intends to guide players towards a specific answer to whether life is worth living.

While the power of friendship was certainly championed as a tool with which to overcome hardship as well as one potential source of joy, I don't think the narrative positioned it as the answer. After a lifetime of sociopathic genocide, my friendless Zenos obtains what makes him happy, and while the narrative is clearly critical of his methods, my reading of his story's conclusion is that he felt all the hardship was worth it to reach that moment. Venat always loved life for its own sake, being a lone wanderer who enjoyed not only her interactions with other people, but her interactions with the world and all of its wonders. And perhaps more telling, she sentenced everyone she knew — both friend and foe — to death, committing genocide on her entire world, because after weighing her many options she felt it was the right thing to do. Whatever meaning and value Venat put on life extends well beyond friendship. Hermes deeply struggles with what he sees as cruelty and apathy committed in his society; these are valid, tangible problems, and the narrative doesn't imply that friendship would have solved them.

The question about what makes life worth living is a complex, subjective, and personal one, and if Endwalker had proposed one answer to rule them all, I agree that it would have felt hollow. Thankfully, I didn't feel like that was what it was saying. Though again, that's just my read, and I don't want to invalidate anyone else's.

[LilimoLimomo]

This isn't about a story without philosophy, but a story without philosophizing.
A story can explore philosophical themes without having their characters stop every 5 minutes to preach everyone about their views.
Especially since it's often a clutch to hide the fact that it's very shallow. (see: all the very long speeches on suffering to random strawmen literally created to receive them, instead of having the characters actually experience it through a story with real stakes)

Haha, that's a fair point! Though I would say that a story that is thematically about whether life is worth living in spite of suffering would probably need at least some exposition to adequately communicate its ideas, I wouldn't be surprised if Endwalker could have done a bit less telling and a bit more showing. That's a valid critique.

[kpxmanifesto]

The story is great but your opinion isn't

[Eorzean_username]

My favorite part of all these theatrics is that even when people know it's 2 alts arguing with each other, you still see about a 50/50 split of Likes between one post or the other.

The entire world, united together under the banner of, "I don't care, as long as the sockpuppet is saying something I agree with!"

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Oh right staying on-topic, uh

Though I would say that a story that is thematically about whether life is worth living in spite of suffering would probably need at least some exposition to adequately communicate its ideas, I wouldn't be surprised if Endwalker could have done a bit less telling and a bit more showing.

For me the core problem is that suffering is only okay if you're the Ancient people.

In the modern day the Scions bend over backwards to try to eradicate all sources of suffering everywhere they go. It's like the primary plot point. At no point is there any philosophy like, "Oh, we could help these orphans, but then they might stop valuing life because they're not eating back-alley rats in order to survive and dying of exposure on cold nights. Vrtra, let's spend all that money on chocobo betting and courtesans, instead."

So like... which is it?

Do you need to always struggle as hard as possible to make the world a better place, even when it's overwhelming or seems impossible?

Or do you need to just give up and accept that suffering is super-important and let it happen — no, nay! Make even more happen, just for good measure!

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"Life is worth living, even when it's terrible!" works for me in a world where heroes have very limited power to change things and you see a lot of hardship constantly and just have to kind of accept it. Like early Ishgard, before it got Bowdlerised into a happy playground of love and fraternity. In that case, characters struggling to find meaning even despite so many awful things surrounding them makes plenty of sense. (Yet ironically the game, then, spent much less time vocally pondering such things, leaving it to the player's own intelligence to consider)

However, at this point, the Scions don't suffer and their plans don't fail.

Oh, sure, there will be some cartoony set-back or other, but there won't be any actual consequences besides maybe some NPC getting KO'd who was already marked-for-death the moment they showed up on-screen wearing an outfit that can be entirely assembled from the Market Board.

So in the end, the Scions just pop up somewhere, miraculously solve everything, and then the plot spends 3 hours cramming down your throat how happy and optimistic even the most mundane everyday citizen is now feeling.

(Because of you. The WOL. In case that wasn't clear. Because you're amazing. And you make me feel better. Just by breathing. Thank you. Truly. Thank you so much. You changed my life. Thank you. Please... thank you. I love you.)

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It makes the entire EW theme feel hollow and weird. Why are we still agonising about continuing on, even through hardship, when we are like some sort of unnatural force of anti-hardship that saturates the area with Solution Radiation everywhere that we travel to?

The real scene would be:

Meteion: "Life is really sad sometimes, seems like being dead would be better, why even bother trying?"

Alisae: "Because! If you wait patiently for a while, we will show up and fix all your problems for you, while emerging entirely-unscathed ourselves!"

[DPZ2]

Translation:

Don't quit your day job.

[kpxmanifesto]

My favorite part of all these theatrics is that even when people know it's 2 alts arguing with each other, you still see about a 50/50 split of Likes between one post or the other.

The entire world, united together under the banner of, "I don't care, as long as the sockpuppet is saying something I agree with!"

Yup, an entire thread that's controversial, more or less, turns into one of these:



Quite entertaining if you ask me, lmao.

[Lunaxia]

snip

Well-articulated post, especially your point about Ishgard. EW's message indeed may actually have worked before the game's revamp in tone and direction, but it just doesn't fly in a post-5.0 world where we went from an adventurer against the odds to a celebrity with our own entourage of privileged academics nannying us everywhere and acting as a buffer between any potential plot conflict or issues that can't be solved without a quip from Y'shtola and some good old fashioned Can Do attitude.

My favorite part of all these theatrics is that even when people know it's 2 alts arguing with each other, you still see about a 50/50 split of Likes between one post or the other.

The entire world, united together under the banner of, "I don't care, as long as the sockpuppet is saying something I agree with!"

Only to go on to accuse the other side of being composed of trolls for aligning themselves with the bait posts that don't support their views and everyone eventually making a total strawman out of the entire original argument on the basis of personal grudges... which is clearly the trolls' MO in the first place.

It's like watching a dog chase its tail, and until it occurs to some posters that trying to solidify your position off of the back of trolling attempts only weakens your argument no matter how much they may match your own views, we'll be watching Fido go around for a while yet.

[Vyrerus]

Solution Radiation

I love you. Full 100% Heart Eyes, motherfucker!

[Lauront]

So like... which is it?

Do you need to always struggle as hard as possible to make the world a better place, even when it's overwhelming or seems impossible?

Or do you need to just give up and accept that suffering is super-important and let it happen — no, nay! Make even more happen, just for good measure!

Yes, on the one hand the game would imply everywhere has to be close to Ul'dah (some other areas in ARR/HW would qualify too) or the Azim Steppes and this is an optimal state of being. Those self-same terrible (but at least consistent on some level with the time periods they depict) places the Scions long sought to improve. On the other hand, the actual game itself is most aptly reminds me of the Plenty, with more and more of it hollowed out and homogeneised over time in the course of "perfecting" it (ah yes, that EW bogeyman), to say nothing of the tolerance of some parts of its playerbase for even the slightest inconveniences; I still recall Yoshi citing players not being 'stressed' as a motivating reason for healer re-designs. Always thought that was strange since I play these games for some challenge, and so avoiding 'stress' to me isn't really a priority.

"Life is worth living, even when it's terrible!" works for me in a world where heroes have very limited power to change things and you see a lot of hardship constantly and just have to kind of accept it. Like early Ishgard, before it got Bowdlerised into a happy playground of love and fraternity. In that case, characters struggling to find meaning even despite so many awful things surrounding them makes plenty of sense. (Yet ironically the game, then, spent much less time vocally pondering such things, leaving it to the player's own intelligence to consider)

Exactly. It's a useful coping mechanism and mentality to push through a difficult existence where prospects of improvement are either limited or too costly to pursue. But let's take the Garleans, who are basically a people without the ability to use magic and who experienced an ousting from their original homeland and being embroiled in constant conflict to maintain their current (now former) one, they still aim for the betterment of their lot. Yes, they take pride in the fact that they've persevered through it all, but they don't see it as an apex beyond which there's no further growth. No, they value the comforts they've attained. Ditto with the Ishgardians and the cessation of their war. I'd say this impulse towards betterment is a natural human impulse, even if some conceited leporine preachbot sees it as folly.

(Because of you. The WOL. In case that wasn't clear. Because you're amazing. And you make me feel better. Just by breathing. Thank you. Truly. Thank you so much. You changed my life. Thank you. Please... thank you. I love you.)

It's honestly one of those aspects that's just worn really thin for me. I never particularly liked it from the outset, but I feel it's grown worse over time, and is partly why the writers may have thought Venat's actions would seem touching ("she did it all for you!")... until the costs involved are brought to bear. I'd attribute a lot of the awkwardness in the writing to trying to bend it all in service to this aim of "personalising" her actions for her brave little spark.

The game's exaltation of suffering borders on a ridiculous quasi-religious (more than philosophical) viewpoint, in my eyes. It seems to confuse the (speaking in general terms) psychological need and benefit to our species to be challenged with uncontrolled and unpredictable (in their nature, frequency and severity) acts/experiences of suffering, and then tries to claim this latter is existentially necessary, applying this across swathes of (alien, even!) species with different biological apparatuses and, by implication (or so you'd think... I know none of this is the devs' strong point) psychologies, when it's arguably not even true of human psychology that suffering will necessarily 'strengthen' you. And it's not even consistent about it, as the Scions continue trucking along with their ideology, any shock expressed in the Plenty swiftly forgotten about, as they sow the seeds for a future that will eventually usher in (or so the game would claim) Dead End 3. Meanwhile the Omega quests walked back any specific psychological traits mattering when it comes to succumbing to despair. I'm glad you brought up the issue of the Scions and the game's established "message" to date and its dissonance with EW, because it's really one of my biggest issues with its story.

Guess we'll just all die of boredom eventually, it's over, too much trouble to think of ways to keep ourselves occupied, time to pull down the curtains!

Alisae: "Because! If you wait patiently for a while, we will show up and fix all your problems for you, while emerging entirely-unscathed ourselves!"

Pretty much, also the mentality at play with Y'shtola's shrug of the shoulders in the face of the Ea and their existential plight. An act of arrogance for anyone but the protagonists.

Hermes deeply struggles with what he sees as cruelty and apathy committed in his society; these are valid, tangible problems, and the narrative doesn't imply that friendship would have solved them.

He struggles more with death (or the concept of purpose in life given death) and uses his surroundings as a sounding board for his viewpoint, because you don't have to step far away from him to see that many other ancients also had some sentimentality for the creations. Plus he repeats the same perspective as Amon resulting from his experience of the sundered world. But beyond that... funnily enough, Yoshi kind of did. Not to mention Meteion and all the civilisational despair she was souped up on were resolved through the power of friendship in UT, more or less.

[Axxion]

forum challenge: take a shot every time someone vaguely mentions a silent majority (bonus shot if they change the number every time) or minority in their post

you will not survive.

honey listen my kidneys will not be cable to handle that.

The story is great but your opinion isn't

you are reminding me of that elezen george, if im not mistaken. they was the only person that would do that